Has any performer stood so long behind the curtain? Has anyone held onto the anticipation for years inside boxes in boxes in attic or basement? Has anyone ever been so ready for their audience? That at a glimmer of light the band starts up and her feet begin to move as if in their own? She has practiced her routine for daughters who have become grandmothers, the steps a part of her as much as her...

No more hiding place

No more small quiet hope

Tucked away in a corner

Safe, out of sight

It’s done now

It’s open rebellion

Or silent resignation

Our kids will have sunburns

In winter, our neighbors

Will be gone by Christmas

We gave away the whole damn ballgame

To a racist rapist conman

When they come for you

There will be no one left

To speak up....

On the bedside table of the horizon

What is remembered of the day

Is being written on a journal of clouds.

The East is dark but in the west

The sky is closing its bright eye

Behind a lid of twinkling night,

Already dreaming in the cricketsong....

Hell is high water, dark, up to your eyes

Standing on tiptoes till your feet cramp

Treading water, trying not to think

About what’s brushing your leg.

The whole towns flooded sister

And it hasn’t stopped raining.

I’m not a life preserver

But I stop by to drown with you from time to time,

To remember the people whose legs gave out.

They’re still beneath the surface

Like sharks or driftwood they s...

Are we out yet love?

You have been through hell. I know;

I came after you.

Please break this dreadful silence.

I need to know you’re still there.

We are not out, love,

But soon. Can’t you see that light?

So long in silence,

There is yet a song in me

Of us. Please wait, wait for me....

Counting the ways I love you

Is not like counting stars

Or charting constellations

To navigate by

But like counting raindrops.

They keep coming

As long as the cloud is overhead.

They form puddles on my sidewalks

Pour through the leak in my roof

Flood my basement

And with great effort, if you asked,

I could clear the waters

With an eye dropper,

scientifically, day by day,

But for now I simply...

Not today, not ever,

Soon as my feet start working

I’m running away from you

I can’t, I couldn’t

Soon as my heart starts beating

I’m walking away from you

I wouldn’t, I shouldn’t

Soon as my hands stop touching

I’m getting away from you

But maybe, just maybe

I’ll lay down for a bit

Get up when I’m thinking straight,

When my body feels like mine

Instead of yours

I can quit any time I want to,...

One drop of poison is all it takes

To make you shy from the well

No test, no anecdotal evidence

Will make you certain of safety

The heart is not a scientist,

It does not measure carefully or

Check concentrations against LD50 charts or

Monitor its own symptoms

Throw out all of it, the chemicals,

Disinfectants, pesticides, all the old water.

It won’t matter.

Every drop will whisper

Don’t you rememb...

When a whisper wheels through the willows

Trees too tired to raise their arms start dancing

The entire city of grass lays on their back

and smiles. When the silver mirror of the lake

Starts to tarnish, the azaleas huddle under awnings

Holding out their hands, the daisy in the window nods off, Morning glory shutters it’s doors early,

the marigold opens its eyes and I’ll be planted

Under a front po...

Carp wait in rivers

Dragonfly dips in its tail

Rain and empires fall...