dog bites and bee stings

wasp nests
hanging by a thread
they congregate in old wooden garden boxes
quick on the attack
i wake at night from the  heat and swelling
i recover
only to overindulge in rough play
with a little black dog
we each grab for the stick and
she finds both the softness of human flesh
and the stick
she wins
i lose.

Supervision

bent over his new grill,

prodding a steak and turning vegetables

I watch, I supervise from a distance

sprawled out in my new lounge chair,

the one will a thick layer of pollen settled

into the crease.

well put together with matching socks,

a black long sleeve top and spectacular 

necklace, I watch my balding sweetheart

(don't tell him I noticed)

making my dinner.

it's good to be the supervisor

he got an A+

Traveling to Utica

if i soften and lean towards coming here
again, don't let me,
don't let me ride a bus, fly south to Charlotte
only to board another plane to
Syracuse
I begged for a rental car
and got one for a day
so I could wander through this god
forsaken town with shuttered store fronts
and sad looking double deckers
progress has left this town
behind
and so don't let me come here again
i gave ten hours of my life to get here
way too many

Where is a poem

Let me tell you  where a poem is

hidden behind your face
a shadow of sadness
under bright artificial light

behind that door
a melody of voices,
growls, sobs, singing, then silence

in the bees' nest outside my window
blanketed in winter cold

yielding to spring sunshine
wings, beating, shimmering
in the heat.

(I wrote this poem long ago and chanced upon it...)

Home alone

when I came home,
there was no wagging tail.
when I woke up from my slumber
there was no smile at the bottom of the stairs,
there was no smell of cooking or
the pop of a cork.
it's lonely with no one here but me.
I'm spoiled having a man to hug,
a dog to walk with me, a full refrigerator,
a daughter close by,
they are all away and Boulder
seems so empty.
I miss them being home alone,
I want them to come home.

Happy Birthday, Karen!

my beautiful and brilliant daughter, 

we'll celebrate over buttermilk chocolate cake

with bittersweet ganache icing.

she makes the icing, patiently whipping it

into chocolate deliciousness while I drink

to her health and long life.

what else can a mother do when there is

nothing left to be done, except to keep loving

her, and caving to all her requests.

it was a long day of shopping, cooking and

baking, every second worth it.

and now, for her birthday gift she holds a

sort of ugly, well, very ugly, sparkly 

Christmas decoration for new beginnings

begun long ago.

and, so this beautiful and brilliant daughter

is launching into new adventures; I hope

she will invite me along from time to 

time.

what's love got to do with it?

on a morning walk

we saw "Love", followed by five dogs

and two middle aged women,

like me.

what's Love got to do with 

walking a dog, two women engrossed 

in conversation, these words were sprayed

at midnight on a lonely log

looking for Love

it found Love

as did the women walking their five dogs

and I did, walking my dog as the

sun filtered through the trees,

the stream rushed along its banks,

and I knew that Love belonged

here, and

there.

a pebble on the table

is that the pebble

that one, the granite one, seeming to cast

two shadows from a single sun,

that has already fallen over the mountains/

a shadow of a reflection, a diffuse

shadow cast by a diffuse lightening

in the east.

i would never have noticed in my 

rush until he stopped me, telling me

to watch a pebble

watch a shadow move across a table

as dusk fades to darkness, 

stay up to watch moonshadow 

in the night.

her own room

I have waited for her to have her own room,

her own bed, her own chair and dresser,

a stand for independence holding her music,

a print that she loves on her wall,

perhaps an elephant.

her clothes will be strewn across the floor

because she left them there, intentionally.

I have my own room, he seldom ventures

here, uninvited, even if I do love him.

my stand for independence holds sonatas

by Bach and tangos by Piazzolla.

I leave my clothes strewn on the floor

because I can.

there is an empty space on my wall where an

elephant used to stare at me with her 

wise eyes

the shopping list

the names and page numbers of the recipes

are in the lower right corner

from the cookbook, Plenty.

cardamon, ginger, mint, nutmeg

lemons, chickpeas, 

butter, flour, eggs,

chocolate,

lots of chocolate.

somehow the Plenty reminds me of 

life, all these ingredients when put

together form so many flavors,

texures and smells, and when done

badly create dissonance and

indigestion.

on that night, under candlelight

the echo of laughter and lively conversation

we had Plenty, so much Plenty.

a busy day cooking and baking

it's her birthday,
or close enough for our schedules to match up.
oh, this crazy world.
a cake, an appetizer and other yummies
for a simmering night
no dishes of hot lasagna and heavy red wine,
but cake is an essential
chocolate, bittersweet, buttermilk,
cream, butter and sugar and
a hot oven in a hot kitchen.
it's her birthday and
I'm doing it
to celebrate her 28 years,
well, not quite, and so her birthday
poem must wait for the right
moment.

when all is lost

fifty dead in Orlando,

one dead in Britain,

so many dead in Syria, Iraq, all of Africa,

all over the world, so much ugliness

in the press,

a broken democracy

sold out to the NRA

climate change, human trafficking.

hard problems, difficult decisions

and so when the strawberries from my

garden are on my breakfast table,

in the sunshine, so red, so sweet,

so local, grown with my own hands

and care, 

i wonder that we can't make the

world as sweet at these fruits.

a day in the life

0515
I swing my legs off the side of the bed
tentatively so as not to wake him
I idle upstairs over unopened mail
0600
the black dog is waiting at the stairs
for us to go out; I see eyes open on the bed

we go out I stroll she sniffs we go home
and fill the bird feeder
and fill our tummies

atomic oxygen electrostatic discharge documents
and lunch out talking about new flute teachers
capacitance inductance and resistance
waveforms and flute teachers

1430
I lift weights in oppressive heat
in a garage with a young man
named Kelly

and then my eyes close for awhile
and the weeds are waiting
waiting waiting for me to hack them
and burn them and spray them until
I drop to the ground and they are
still standing

in the early evening when the black dog
stares at me and I grab the leash
and we swish through tall grasses and
look for mice
unsuccessfully

forgetting to eat
hungry
my flute calling out
granola baking
its darkness now

2200
its time.

Approaching

I don't really know how to swim

except to save my life, flailing about,

head barely above water

yet here I stand at the edge of the unknown,

so inviting in such heat, clear and blue

so scary, I don't like getting wet,

even showers do not appeal except to 

keep up with the requirement of civilized

hygiene.

I do not want to be called French

for a lack in this arena.

so here I stand, my toes tentatively 

close to the edge, my heart pounding 

in my chest, afraid but attracted to

this pool of blue unknown.

I ease myself in and swim across

the pool looking for answers.

The clan

there is only one.

one boy biologically related to a single set of parents.

we are all.

in matching blue

the adopted, the orphaned, tall, short,

old and young.

one family

in matching blue.

we may laugh at how silly we look,

I do

but we, all in blue, 

biological strangers salute

big Papa.

Big Papa

there was no big speech,

perhaps only some apologies after having 

thought about this moment for the last year,

having no brilliant or deep thoughts to share with us,

perhaps only some brief annoyance at the daughter-in-law

interrupting to ask for hot coffee,

this is his day.

and so, surrounded by us all, his eyes

misty, us all in attendence,

we listened to his heart

in silence,

we had seen the smiles, the tenderness,

the love, the sadness and anguish

at seeing the end that we will all see one day,

I can understand this.

in spite, or because,

he invited us all to join him here in our 

matching blue T-shirts, 

we would only wear them all for him

in love and appreciation.

when the lights went out

and when the lights went out

the oven turned off, the room went dark.

we called to one another and the dog

barked as she chased an imaginary rabbit.

the cookies were already spooned onto the 

cookie sheet 

the heat of the oven, the darkness

oppressive, 

so quiet.

and when the lights came on,

the cookies reappeared and the oven light

glowed orange, the lights hummed,

cyclists raced across the TV screen

and S called to me to come,

to come and see where we would

travel next year.

Cookies Chip Chocolate

I can't buy cookies in the store anymore

with their long list of ingredients

please, only butter, flour, salt, baking powder,

sugar and lots of chocolate.

vanilla if you have it.

still warm, they break apart revealing

molten chocolate, the warm butter

coats my fingers

all of it melts onto my tongue

alas, I must share them between Daniel,

Karen, Chris, Stephen and me

the ones I eat tonight will go unnoticed

in the count and division,

I will lick my fingers in secret.

like a grown up

like grown-ups
they order cocktails and a cheese plate,
adjusting their chairs to turn a bit towards
each other at a fancy bar while
looking out at the street scene
as the sun sets and the moon rises.
like grown-ups they have a civil
conversation about adult topics
like travel, politics and work,
relationships, family and personal goals.
we're adults now
her and me
she used to be a small baby in my arms
but now
she's a grown-up.

workin' hard at the City Clerk's office

never mind the line.

never mind public servants

looking the other way from the line,

intent on computer screens,

I count 7 agents, 3 serving customers,

a line.

never mind the line.

and when she finishes with one customer,

she turns to the woman with her finger on her lips

and they chat for a bit.

it's such hard work

and only when her mind is fully refreshed,

she turns her attention to me, to find out

where I bought my dress, she has such a hard

time finding three quarter sleeves.

never mind the time,

never mind my time.

The Missing Sock

I found the place that has been 

holding my missing socks, the grey striped one

and the one with red roses, my hiking sock gone 

missing for years and the ones with polka dots,

all my fun socks.

they don't hold the ones with the holes, the ones

that smell bad, that is, most men's socks.

I'm not sure why they call themselves the 

missing SOCK, and not the missing sock(s) since

no one is only missing one that has been eaten

by the laundry or somehow disappeared

to places unknown.

I'm just glad they are to be found,

all these missing socks waiting so 

patiently for us to show up, if only we knew

that they were waiting on Chestnut Street in 

San Francisco.

Daniel

he's my son.

picking up the bill at the restaurant,

buying my sandwich at the beach,

getting my plane ticket.

this is what I like to see.

still so much the same as

when he was a boy,

impulsive, strong-headed, on the move,

physical, smart.

I made him take a selfie of us to

show the world, to remember, this wonderful

moment on Angel Island.

SF is his home now.

I was glad to be invited in

to see.

while I work

while I work, they explode from the ground,

they creep over lattices and set their roots deep

into the soil.

they will always win, these weeds that

don't have a job, need a paycheck or have

to be anywhere at anytime.

they are on garden time all the time,

soaking up the sun, 

drinking up the water

and growing and growing

endlessly

growing.

today I yank them from my flower beds,

the same flower beds as two weeks ago,

they just keep growing,

I am tired

it's all I can to do is to keep up the

good fight.