again in the kitchen, and then again in the hall, over her bed, and then back again to the living room.
Oh, she moved your flowers around so much,
and all I did was follow them around and her.
ACHILLES HEEL
Even if your mother,
sea nymph
with special powers,
lowers you slowly
hanging on
to your bitty heel
then dips you in
to a magical river,
you will never be
immortal.
Even when she finds
she forgot to soak
the heel she held you by,
your vulnerability
will follow,
your weaknesses inevitable.
Though for now, it’s just
that one spot, tiny place
blazing out as a beam
to a world wild with torment,
even if she tries
to burn away the parts
that leave you open.
THE GREAT BLUE HERON
I love the great blue heron
who nests on my pond.
I love his stress
when red-winged black birds
peck at his head with retribution
for his thievery of eggs.
I love how he stands up and
takes it all,
the swirling wings
of tiny payback and I love, oh I love…
I love how the day exists beneath his wings
and even more
how they unfold: feather to muscle to bone
to flight and to somehow
I matter not in any of it.
STORM
The wolf howls a blue moon
and throws it to the sky
like the last of Van Gogh’s
invading strokes of orange.
The final wails of the dying
can release the colors too.
Phone rings at 3:00 a.m.
What is real the receiver
does not know by heart.
This is for the mentally ill
the wild colors of their minds
the deep and lonesome country
friends and family wander.
TO KNOW A SNOW ANGEL
Is to love
what will wash away
with the wind
and drifted days.
Her wings will fade
so gently
into the blanched sky.
Deer might come to see
what has dissolved.
There are no lights
on a distant tree,
no sleigh bells,
no ringing of anything
anywhere.
THEORY ON COLOR
When we placed our mother
in the snow to rest
we dressed her in a purple sweater
for fear she would be chilled.
Our father stood behind
and gasped my wife.
That was 20 years ago.
Time has come and gone.
Some days have stayed too long
others gone too fast.
Her only sister still wears red,
though I never see her. News is
she takes classes at a local college,
but even that was years ago.
Two weeks before my mother died,
she lent me money for a coat.
She left with me in debt to her.
Of course that’s how it went.
I tried to pay my father back
but he would not receive it.
Here, in fact, it’s red, not green that lives.
And purple sings from silent snow.
ALMS
Dawning on her
that it wasn’t a public mass,
the homeless woman, sweet and slow of mind,
slipped
