pushy women who need to be right

you’ve met a few of them.
short ones with stiletto heels, an imperious glare;
they walk down the sidewalk with their
Doberman pinschers; miniature so
that they can look taller than they are,
more powerful than they really are.
there are others; you’ve met the ones
who pretend to be sweetness and light
with their cute curls and softspoken voices,
but who hammer you relentlessly, biting
at your legs like a junkyard dog with a pink
ribbon, until you jump over a barbed wire
fence just to get away.
watch out for pushy women who need to
be right, especially the nice ones, the ones
who offer help; run quickly before you
agree to something you’d regret.

Thanks to EM for prompt for this poem

People Walking on the Bike Path I: Soldier

he walks as gracefully as a dancer,
his stride even and unhurried, each
foot placed with confidence.
He could be a business man or
a professor, but he is a soldier
marching down the bike path in
his combat fatigues and well polished
boots, a dark cap gracing his head.
His gaze is straight ahead and calm,
except when I call out my usual morning greeting
when we cross paths near the bridge;
I am rewarded with a nod and
a slight smile.

The Eve of Tax Day

does the city use more electricity tonight,
when thousands of residents open file drawers
reluctantly pulling out disorganized stacks
of W-2’s, bank statements and random
slips for charitable donations.
we wait until the sun has dropped below
the horizon, reluctantly putting away
garden tools, closing our novels,
opening our laptops and burning
the midnight oil for tomorrow is
tax day.

Creases

Waking up, I see that
my arm has creases in it,
the inverse of the creases in the sheets
on which it rested the last hours.
is this why the dead rest facing
up on their satin pillows so
as not to arise from the dead
with creases in their faces?

Found Treasures While Picking up Garbage

Three of us in orange vests
flitter in and out of ditches
lined with stands of broken
stalks and matted grasses
looking for trash; the usuals are
in good supply:
empty bottles
of Budweiser and Southern Comfort,
crushed Marlboro packets and countless
cigarette butts.
We talk about latest novels, sisters,
getting dropped on a “B” ride,
until we realize Sharon has fallen behind,
like a dog does when he has found a
particularly tasty morsel where even
a stern call from his master will not
pull him away.
She came towards us holding her
treasure, a small jawbone with teeth
still intact.
We dutifully admired it and got back to our
chatting; Jim’s bad back, Jamie Oliver’s
new weekly show and where to buy
good quality meat.
I always find friendship in those ditches
amongst the dead bones and
cigarette butts.

Doggin' it up to Jamestown

I ponder the electrical behavior of sodium ions
in window glass as I watch Sharon’s blue
jersey disappear around the bend. 
(and when I’ll actually sit down to
write that paper because I know I’ll
need to sleep after this ride.)
She slows down  to let me catch up;
we discuss the merits of
women’s colleges, tuition costs
and Spring training in Tucson.
It’s amazing how a tiny amount of
impurity dramatically affects the work
function of a surface and how it then
interacts with other materials in contact.
Sharon slows down again and I tell
her I’m hungry and want to eat a pancake.
I wonder how badly the forests will be
affected by the pine beetle, and I
hope that it’s not going to be so bad
as on the other side of the Divide,
and can’t wait to eat one of those
blueberry pancakes, and I’m not sure
when I’ll write that paper that’s due
Wednesday when I haven’t even
started, but if I can get all the way
to Jamestown, I’ll call the day
a success.

A Haircut on a Friday Night

It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night.
As I drive up
I see Angela sitting with Tim
and Tiffany watching headlights
passing by, waiting for the salon
to close down for the night, after
having swept the floor from the last cut.
Not yet, customers trickle in,
happy after a couple drinks at the
local bar, lonely after an evening
without a friend, or just passing by and
realizing they need a cut and Angela
is there; I fit in two of the categories.
She’s a big woman, immersing you
in the details of how her 12 year old
son, her mom, what was wrong
with her first marriage and why she’s
not rushing to do it again, she was just
thinking of you and wondered when
you’d come in again, after only one
cut and you believe her
because how can you
not.