3/31/16

through his small body,
my milk-stained robe -

our ribs meet and
I feel the gurgle
of his lungs like my own

3/30/16

magnolia petals

done hoisting our
winter-sick hearts

now rot to rust:
blessings spent

3/29/16

running past a dozen happy hours

my feet hit each cellar door 

square: 

                 

                      bang bang 

the give of steel, the expected 

jolt and clatter an act of joy

3/28/16

he stops mid-chew

and starts to laugh -

at what, I can only guess

his mind, a new expanse

large enough to stand inside

3/27/16

arrived early to brunch,
we make small talk
like strangers

coffee pools in our saucers
no matter how careful

3/26/16

freeze the cobra
midstrike,
trace its undulation -

the spines of bare trees
rise from the hillside

3/25/16

the barberry bush 

spits thorns and sulks.

I prune her too roughly -

unwanted old aunt

that came with the house

3/24/16

where the houses
slid down the hill,
forsythia blooms wild -

sprays in the rubble,
yellow as poison

3/23/16

the city gardens sing yellow
with acres of tiny daffodils;
on the elevator a pack
of knee-high boys tussle -
towheaded, spring fevered

3/22/16

digging up the weeds 

of early spring,

my hands sieve the old neighborhood -

bent nails and 

wedges of iridescent pink glass

3/21/16

inevitable betrayal -
when the slim
branch
of girlhood
finally snaps

3/20/16

in the linoleum basement
we eat crockpot-warm pierogi
sunk in butter, neon yellow -
upstairs saints sit in their
cerulean thrones, unseen

3/19/16

on the grey river trail
joggers hang found gloves
from low branches
like the rain-soaked kills
of a cat, laid out with love

3/18/16

alone in the crook

of a used bookshop,

stripped down to brain 

and eyeballs -

the vigilance of ghosts

3/17/16

knees dark
with cold mud,
I tear at the lily roots -

tangled bolus
of white snakes

3/16/16

motherhood taught me
to savor a good crossword:
smooth mirror symmetry
made complete
in a life ever unfinished

3/15/16

the ides of march
and street trees
hide their daggers
in clouds of
pink blossoms

3/14/16

my pale bride bones

melt into sinew - 

some old witch,

sleeping in your sunlit bedroom,

tongue furred with black spells

3/13/16

nightfall and the robin

on the roof is chiding the world;

he scolds the pebbles and flies,

spring winds, mud,

the lip of sky that dares to steep black-blue

3/12/16

sunglasses and the thump
of bass in the parking lot;
too sunny for March,
too hungover
to act my age

3/11/16

dig your nails
into the softening dirt
glove your hands
in warm silt
silk

3/10/16

holding tight my son's tiny hand
I elucidate on the noises of trucks,
the danger of nudging a toy through
the sewer grate, things in the world that
are circles - like my fingers around his wrist

3/9/16

step into my home, dim

in the sunken afternoon light

but suddenly buoyant,

rife with the violet-blue scent 

of rooms swept with spring air

3/8/16

The romance of the lunch plate:

filigree of sliced tomatoes,

grilled cheese lacy with burned fat,

buttersoft beets cubed and piled

like a trove of rough garnets.

3/7/16

awake two hours before sunrise,
I sit on the moth-chewed couch
to watch him at the hard work of play;
his eager gait, like a dog straining
towards that green moment of leashlessness

3/6/16

air torn by the 

thick-tongued chord

of passing trains,

their centipede sulk

into soot-inked holes

3/5/16

I gave birth squatting
in the ochre, staring at the
sun, pebbles, crystal grit
now I hide my son in blue dusk
behind a fence of bared teeth

3/4/16

a room awash in spirits, warm hands
refolding stringy thrift-store sweaters,
the lines forming along our eyes but
oh the stories we slipped into our wine
oh we flat-footed hilltop women

3/3/16

carry buckets of stone-smelling water

fetch the horses from their wooded wander
and brush their legs clean of ticks

mend the fence where it cracked in the night
and lay shattered two half-frozen weeks

3/2/16

the unvoiced morning 

between coffee and skyspit snow;

later on the baby cried so loud

the iron radiator resonated,

startled him with its ringing

3/1/16

for a month I've rode 

this bed like a boxcar

flat back hobo healing

ready to jump ship

purple scars flying