Book of the Week

 My Father’s Sky (Kelsay Books 2026) by Rose Mary Boehm

 

Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

Colorful as the cover, clever and well crafted, Rose Mary Boehm’s new poetry collection, “My Father’s Sky,” take us on a wild ride through turbulent skies from her childhood in Germany during World War II to Peru where she now lives at the age of 88. In Rose Mary’s signature storyteller style, she shares stories that made me feel like I was there living her life.  I was riveted and read it from cover to cover and didn’t want it to end. The 109-page book contains 60 poems and is divided into four sections: My Father’s Sky, September, Tumbleweed and The Wine Colored Seas.

Rose Mary dedicates the book to “my amazing granddaughters: Blossom and Daphne, so they can read stories I might not have the time to tell, as well as to my dear Lima friend Barbara von Merck who lived in some of my worlds.

The cover is illustrated by Kiki Suarez, a German born artist who found her niche of life in the southeast of Mexico.

I’ll let the praise from two members of the storyteller community and poems tell the story.

Joan Leotta, Story Performer and Poet writes:

My Father’s Sky is a wonderful collection of small moments and reflections on deep questions begins with a deep dive into the Germany of her childhood. In her early years, the personal was often beaten about, roiled, by the political chaos and cruelty of World War II and the postwar period in her homeland. With an unerring pen, Rose consistently finds the intersection of personal and the world around it to create a place for our reflection. She tells us at the beginning, “I am a gypsy in time and place. Wherever I go I collect stories, moments, injustices, and joy. Every time the box is filling up, it all wants out to become poems.”

Alan Walowitz, author, The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems writes:

“My Father’s Sky,” the title poem in Rose Mary Boehm’s latest collection, reveals how a skilled poet reaches into her distant memories, transforms them into something new, and then — with joy and passion — passes them to us. The poet’s magic! The opening poem tells us much about the distance we are about to travel, a journey through displacement, discovery, and re-invention which, though challenging, reveals what a poet of honesty, grace, and maturity is capable of. How lucky we are to be in her company! Toward the end, Boehm asks, “Where your world ends, does mine begin?” No matter where she has been — Germany, Holland, London, Lima now, and so many other stops — she is a seeker of connection. Here, through her poems, she finds it with us, despite her own knowledge that the deepest connection, the one we all seek, might not lie easily within our reach. Fortunately, in My Father’s Sky, Boehm makes the unlikely seem quite possible.

Some of my favorite poems:

My Father’s Sky
 
My hand disappeared in his, our boots
swished on the snow, already hardened
by many steps. That is the Milky Way, he said,
and pointed at a giant river of twinkling lights
that looked nothing like milk.
Oh, and over there, that ‘W’ is Cassiopeia.
I knew the Big Dipper, of course,
and Father let me find Orion. A belt woven
from starlight. Draw a line through the belt
towards the left, he said. See that bright star?
That’s Sirius. The Dog Star.
No, no dogs on Sirius.
It’s part of the ‘Canis Major’ constellation,
that means ‘Greater Dog’ in Latin.
How disappointing. I had imagined all dogs coming
to us from Sirius, beings from space.
The sky began to fall into some kind of order,
a glittering glory of twinkles and tinkles
I would remember forever, and my small, cold hand
being warmed in my father’s big one.
 
Big cities let me forget my father’s sky. Sometimes
even the moon was hidden by buildings that seemed
to loom dark, towering, and unforgiving.
The city lights made me ignore the grandeur
of a world beyond, the mysteries of space.
There always was, of course, the latest on the Internet,
TV, and assorted means of communication.
A little machine on Mars sent pictures from a desert
that once held some form of life perhaps. Bradbury’s
‘Martian Chronicles’ had awakened a longing, Heinlein’s
‘Red Planet’ had convinced me of the reality of my dreams.
 
One day, after I had held my grandchildren’s hands
and showed them Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper
and Sirius – the only ones I recognised—
we found home on our small piece of earth
in the middle of nowhere on the Castilian plateau.
A warm night caressed me as I sat on the pretend
plastic boulder that looked like a stone (something
dishonest somebody had thought up to house
the gear that made our pool work);
I heard the bulls low across
the quiet night and dreaming fields,
from the pond came the occasional splash.
A nightbird called its mate, the walnut tree
bombarded the wooden bench below it,
and I looked for Orion towards the horizon,
setting my eyes to ‘far away’ to find the Milky Way,
looking behind me to the left for Cassiopeia, and whispered
‘Dogs on Sirius’ to my father who had—softer than any feather—
taken my warm hand in his cold one.


My Mother the Alchemist
 
I’d watch her transform stinging nettles into spinach soup after we picked them carefully, trying to touch only the underside of the leaves. We had no gloves. Dandelion shoots became salad with a bit of vinegar and salt. She magically metamorphosed a box of our silver flatware into a hundredweight of potatoes, her last damask tablecloth somehow converted itself into another hundredweight of carrots.
 
She brought water from the pump in two heavy buckets up to the second floor on stone stairs. That became soup, drinking water, and a bird bath for my budgie.
 
After picking up the left-over stalks from fields the farmers had finished harvesting, mother dried the wheat and ground it in the coffee mill for a chunky morning porridge.
 
One day’s worth of sewing underpants for the Russian army mutated miraculously into bread and sometimes butter.
 
And at the end of the day, mother made the best magic of all: with a book on her lap, by the light of a glowing fire in the wood stove, she transformed a different hunger into possibilities.
  
Sentries and markers
The hinterland of dreams
Deliverance


Bad Women
 
My aunt was fur and long red fingernails,
she was Arpège and hats with veils,
worn at an angle.
She was dare and devil,
bewitching and hot of temper.
Oh, the temper.
There was a buzz about her.
When she walked (she never tottered)
on heels that reached into the sky,
there was a swishing sound of silk and taffeta
rubbing and inviting lewd thoughts.
I read the thoughts in men’s eyes
when they watched her pass.
She was earrings that pulled the earlobes
down with their weight—
glass, not diamonds.
It was said she had lovers.
There were other aunts who had husbands.
She was everything I wanted to be
when I grew up, and I was prepared to pay
the price of nasty whispers behind
gloved hands, raised eyebrows, jealous looks
that could kill.
I’d watch her lift up her chin, raise
her long cigarette holder, and smile.


Flying to New York
 
We are doing a left.
The Hudson Bay disappears under
the rising wing,
the sea comes towards us.
 
I remembered Miss Geography.
An elderly ship in which we safely sailed
in a no-nonsense way.
I remembered the wooden stick
in her bony hand, veins thick
under her skin, poking the map
of North America.
“Hudson Bay!” she stentored sternly,
and repeated it so it would penetrate
our thick skulls. “Hudson Bay!”
 
And when we approached Canada,
before making the turn,
it all looked exactly as it did then,
in that dingy school room,
on that much used geography map
hanging from a rusty hook in the wall.
It was for rolling up.
As Miss Geography became more relaxed,
one leg went up onto an unoccupied bench,
and long, beige, woolen bloomers
became visible under a medium long,
beige skirt.
 
There were only old teachers left.
It was 1950. The young ones
had all been killed at the front.
The new crop hadn’t been harvested yet.
Then, one day they trickled in.
First just a few.
Oh. My. God. There was Miss French.
She can’t have been older than 25.
She wore fashionable dresses,
and lipstick!
We all loved her to bits and wanted
to be like her when we grew up!
She was soon followed by Mr History.
We swooned, and my friend Doris
passed her history exam with
a very revealing wrap-around blouse
as well as two impressive tits.
Mr Maths and Miss Art, we snickered,
saw each other after class.
 
When I pedaled my bike home,
my school satchel clamped precariously
behind my squeaky seat, I looked forward
to this unknown journey awaiting me,
once I was free to explore a world
that was so full of promise.
I took my hands off the handlebars
and whistled.


Waltz me Towards the Tango
 
Düsseldorf
Helsinki
Paris
Antwerp
Amsterdam
London. The 60s. A husband and a family.
My mother tongue goes on crutches
with a disturbed syntax,
while I am growing
into my new language
yet unformed, a toddler
that wobbles with insecure legs onto a page.
 
Everything is new and not that shiny.
Learning how to be a wife, soon to be a mother.
Finding out where the buses go. Living on love
and father-in-law’s occasional offerings (he’s got
a shop in Finsbury Park… food, mostly.)
 
Liebe Mutti, Ich brauche Dich. I need you, Mum.
The telephone is expensive, letters take up to five days.
By the time they get to their destination, the news
is old. When I bring that baby home, I am sure
I’ll kill him. Washing the nappies by hand,
moving my hips to the neighbour’s blue beat.
 
I can’t quite express what is in me, I don’t quite
understand the laughter that follows an obvious
joke, not that the joke is at all obvious to me. I dress
like the Queen Mum at parties designed for minis or
bell-bottoms. My slow waltzes still inform my first twist,
my friends gently take the piss,
and I am not yet sure about the ‘why’.
 
Years pass, my language is English, the learning
curve was steep, the result satisfying. Laughing about
myself comes easy, and I discover a sense of humour
that draws from a well I share in a surprising
and profound way. I read my favourites in the original.
I timidly reach out to words that might a poem make.
 
Life’s vagaries bring me to Lima via Madrid.
My tangos are blighted by the memory of flamenco,
salsa a far cry from the Beatles,
and I am fluent in Spanish.
I am fluent in Catholic, and fluent
in Latin shoulder shrugs. I have learned to read
through superficial amabilidad and the every-day language
of taking oneself very seriously.
 
But my library, sprinkled with books
in the languages of distant planets,
is filled with pages in English, the last plank of my ship
that broke apart somewhere over the Pacific.


Things I Found at the Bottom of my Doom Box
 
Two half-eaten romances
A one-night stand
A kiss that never was
Butterfly wings made of regrets
Several hateful thoughts
Quite a few wild nights of alcohol, dance,
and expectations
An unfinished composition of little musical interest
High heels in hand, tiptoeing out of a hotel
Various boxes full of good intentions
A folder with poems that rhyme
Two chapters of him being handsome and strong,
her being needy and whiny
At least ten bundles of angst in all colours
Insecurity of African proportions and a good dollop
of body dysmorphia
A jump from the ten-meter board
to impress the boys
Tomes of heimweh in the key of E minor
Sacks full of false memories
Spring mornings with open windows, blue air,
and Vivaldi’s Mandolin Concierto No. 1
The mysteries of Oxfordshire’s hidden cottages
winking from behind wild-flower hedges
A dislocated shoulder after practicing the Kama Sutra
Hand-washed nappies on the lines in the moonlit
garden, hanging them to the neighbour’s blue beat
Teddybearspicknick accompanied by watermelon
and Haloumi cheese
Nights with my colicky firstborn slung over my shoulder
My baby daughter’s first smile
Their father’s lover asking with shiny eyes
for his hand in marriage
 

The Prompter in One of London’s Lesser Theatres
 
Oh dear, she’s about to say the wrong lines again.
I hiss: “Find somebody else …”
Oh, she got it. Uff.
 
Who on earth put a polka-dot rug beneath that
faux art-nouveau dinner table?
Last night they had one with brown stripes.
Oh shit, how on earth did that cat get in?
The audience snickers.
 
As the leading lady’s feet walk by my box,
I can’t help getting distracted.
Not in a sexual way.
It’s just that her shoes are a little on the big side
and make that slurping noise,
let her walk appear a little inebriated.
Couldn’t they have found a pair that fitted?
Wardrobe is lacking, I see.
 
Why does he always forget his lines?
I whisper in my sharpest: “You think you still matter.”
Oh my God, he almost looks down,
What a twit.
 
Their on-stage marriage is supposed to be on the rocks.
His character drinks too much, and she is a cheat.
Since they are heavily into each other off set,
it’s difficult, I suppose.
 
There he goes. Finally.
Grab her by the throat. Yes! That’s it!
Now he’s on fire. He almost spits it out:
“You evil, cheating bitch!”
He lets her go.
“God, how I hate you. You have been a fake
from day one!”
I turn the page.
Look at my watch.
 
He’ll get to knifing her in about ten.
Every night when I hear her scream I know
I’ll just be able to catch the last Tube, sit with the mostly
young, drunk, noisy crowds that spilled from the pubs.
I wipe an invisible speck off my lapel,
adjust my wire-rimmed glasses,
open the ‘Evening Standard’
by the culture pages.
We all travel back to the suburbs.
 
Smoking is not allowed on the train.
The heavily tattooed kid in the olive green
army surplus jacket inhales deeply
and throws me a look of hatred mixed with disgust.

 
To buy the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Fathers-Sky-Rose-Mary-Boehm/dp/B0H6YHSXS1/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vLASBpfYjjooHQLChDcaOA.c-8ptPzv0lox6zPMXUeTSC94hlgo_FXAw38Nje0J_QI&dib_tag=se&keywords=my+father%27s+sky+by+boehm&qid=1785163564&sr=8-1

https://kelsaybooks.com/products/my-father-s-sky?fbclid=IwY2xjawTUTs5wZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMVA1NUZISnFVRzdTNnpaRE1zcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe3isH5qAgUazQUjQ5ctF8SF6N48TH7pBFMSYTBXt7nXl9UKNGv2ZApM0ZX5s_aem_eh2W-y76HM7ccnkLiUiEZg

:

Special Summer Series

When Nature Turns Nasty

 


Gobble, Gobble by Laurie Byro

For Sharon

“Our wild turkey was back as well as the bear,” I tell Sharon on one of our late-night telephone talks – she in Arizona, me in New Jersey.

“The turkey would be harmless, but I wouldn’t want a bear in my backyard,” she says.

Sharon has obviously never met a wild turkey. It’s time to force her to go cold turkey on her fantasies about the beautiful bird that brings families together on Thanksgiving.

“Turkeys have wicked hooks on their feet, dangerous, nasty hooks to attack with,” I say. 

Then I tell her about my wild turkey escapade, and I am not referring to the alcoholic beverage.

“One girl turkey chased me around the back yard twice until I ran up a ladder. She was fast, I was waddling not her, she was in her summer bikini bod and very pissed off with me, righteous. She was eating birdseed that spilled from the feeders, lucky for me, the ladder Mike was using to fill the feeders was left out. I would have been a goner. 

“Sharon, picture this: It took 20 minutes of me screaming for help for Mike to come out and shoo her away. It started raining, me on a ladder." 

THIS wild turkey sobers her up.

"That’s scary," she says.  “My grandmother used to say always carry an umbrella for protection against the weather or the wicked. You should have asked Mike to bring you an umbrella.”
 
“Your grandmother was right,” I say and read her an article from the internet advising to never turn your back on aggressive turkeys or run away from them as turkeys will view you as submissive. Instead, make yourself look larger by raising your hands above your head, holding open your jacket, opening and closing an umbrella, or making loud noises by shouting or using an air horn.

 
“I should have HAD an umbrella!” I say and with that we say good night and hang up.

Blow Snake by Marilyn Zelke Windau

There in the road was a blow snake.
A vulture pecked at it as supper.

He hadn't seen a blow snake for years
only heard it in his dreams,
heard the hiss!

Age 10 at that time, he had shuddered and stopped.
His dad had too.
They were walking the railroad tracks at Pembine.
The snake had been deer hoof-halved.
Life light still in its eyes, it reared,
spit its warning.
They threw stones to deaden its pain.

He slept that night in the cabin, top bunk,
tried to silence the sound in his head.
Finally, he got up, grabbed the flashlight,
went out to the outhouse.
As he opened the door,
he heard "HISS!"
Immediately he closed the door for safety
and found a dry oak leaf
scrape-stuck to its bottom.

Parable of the Skunk by Sarah Russell
 
An eye-watering, acrid smell
told us a skunk was under the porch.
The dog offered to kill it for us
or at least nudge it, but we declined
and called the varmint guy
who assured the tearful kids
the skunk would have a new home far away
and set a wire trap with stuff skunks like –
marshmallows and cat food.
 
Next morning, sure enough,
there was the skunk, munching marshmallows,
not even knowing he was caught.
The varmint guy came back, armed
with a large white sheet, a vial of ether
and safety goggles "just in case."
He told us to stand back.
We did.
 
He held the sheet arms-wide in front
(so the skunk sees only blankness, he explained)
and inched slowly toward the trap.
(You don't hurry blankness.)
The skunk still munched, enjoying the marshmallows.

 Finally, the sheet dropped over the cage,
the ether slipped underneath,
the munching stopped, and the kids
approved a sweetly sleeping skunk.
Then skunk, cage, sheet, 2 half-eaten
marshmallows and a cat food can went in the truck,
and off they drove to wherever needs more skunks.
The dog sniffed the crime scene. 

And it struck me how we humans go along
munching our marshmallows and cat food
while blankness closes in,
and then one day we wake up
to no marshmallows and an awful headache,
wondering what the hell happened.


You leave the group on the Cascade trail by Joe Cottonwood

to take a dump in a grove of cedar 
where you startle a sleeping bear 
who lifts head with a pop. 
Suddenly bear is a boulder on legs
you cannot possibly outrun. 

In desperation rising from a squat 
you point one finger at the oncoming monster 
and yell NO! Bad bear! Stop! Sit! 

For an instant you wonder 
if this is the last moment 
you’ll ever see that finger 
but the bear has stopped, 
front claws planted on a log. 
Still the frown more terrifying 
than the face of your father
after the paint-can incident 
before he walloped you 
so hard he broke your nose 
which was 20 years ago
but seems relevant to this situation 
as a matter of unfortunate behavior, 
of no escape.

An eternity of seconds, eye to eye 
across a width of one trunk of tree
smelling breath of berry and rancid fish. 
Then a grunt. Of dismissal. Or disgust. 
And bear turns, departs in a crashing 
of underbrush. As you rejoin the group 
they say they heard you talking. 
To a dog.? Coyote? Wolf? 
“Ghost of my father,” you say, 
and for the rest of the hike 
they pretend you aren’t there. 


Natural Order by Alarie Tennille

The kitchen happens to be
in the way.  Each May the ants
 
make their peony pilgrimage,
follow their doctrine of pheromones
 
up cabinets, over counters, down.
Dotted lines of monks pepper
 
the floor.  On and on they come
in a scene from Cecil B. Demille,
 
proceeding as directed.
Never mind the brief frenzy
                  
at the cat food bowl.  In a miracle
of efficiency, they’re soon gone.
 
So I wonder why, for the past
three nights, a single ant has
 
tickled my arm as I sit in 
the next room.   Are there always
 
a few lost, unworthy of reaching
paradise—the weak, the doubting,
 
the unrepentant?  Or perhaps the same
ant keeps returning, praying
 
I will again blow him aloft,
longing for the rapture of flight.

First published in Whirlybird Anthology of Kansas City Writers  


The Beetle by Arlene Gay Levine
 
While cleaning the cellar steps, I unearth a black beetle
hidden among leaves, feathers, and withered rose petals: 
fall's gentle gifts collecting, a whisper of winter.
I don’t enjoy insects but my better self says, “Oh, please…”
so I try to be polite; maybe this ugly fellow likes me no better.
 
Gently, I use the spiky tines of my straw broom as a blockade.
“Turn back!” they suggest but this bulbous bulb of unconsciousness
plods on, directly in the path of my rapidly moving weapon.
It keeps advancing toward the sweeping, infuriating me with what I perceive to be foolhardiness rather than persistence.
 
“Why not retreat toward the hole you came from?’ I silently implore
this intrusive creature, much the way I have thought about my new
neighbors: unreasonably noisy, boundary-invading, diffident
people despoiling every semblance of beauty, of order
in what I now refer to as my “former” home.
 
In a carefully controlled manner, I explain how stomping
on uncarpeted steps when our townhomes share the wall
or unattended grass that morphs into a weedy mass, or for that matter,
this rotten plank of wood they shoved unceremoniously under my fence
(who can even imagine why?) is not normal behavior here.
 
No use talking though they do speak English.
The deaf could hear their screaming through the walls. They only smile,
shake their heads and go inside, as if to show they do not understand,
as if to say my feelings have amused them.
 
I take a deep breath, exhale slowly, pull myself back to the task at hand.
The leaves, the cellar, the beetle. Oh, yes. The beetle.
But because I have forgotten him, ignored his presence,
he has decided to retreat. Imagine that! All my defensive
posturing and aggression could not accomplish what an unintentional
act of acceptance has wrought. Beetles can be teachers too.

 
Javelina photo by Dulcee Lima on Unsplash

Bigger doesn’t Mean Meaner by Sharon Waller Knutson

In a frantic frenzy, a doe dances 
in front of the kitchen window
as temperatures hit 110 degrees,
brown eyes pleading for help,
tongue hanging out of a dry mouth.

I look past her to see a javelina
rolling in the dirt to cool off
while another peccary drinks 
at the pond. A stranger might wonder
why a deer that weighs 140 pounds
would be afraid of a 35-pound pig.  
Couldn’t she just hit him in the head
with a hoof if he interfered with her 
getting a drink like she does other deer?

I recall the gash on the leg of the twenty
something man who sits next to us
at a Kenny Chesney concert in Tucson
when we first move to Arizona
three decades ago. A javelina attacked
him in his own yard.  “The tusk sliced
through my skin like a razor blade,” he says.
“It took 16 stitches to sew it back together.”

When we first build our house
in the middle of a wildlife habitat,
we see several tiny faces at dusk
pressed against the window squinting
like seniors with failing eyesight.
“Javelina,” my husband says.
“They’re almost blind.” 

Twenty-six years later our son carries
a gun when he goes out for a smoke
after dark in case of a javelina attack.
A herd of sixteen javelina stop
to stare at his six foot three body
He keeps eyes on them, hand on holster.


Lake Flies by Wilda Morris
 
I stroll the shore, am beset
by a swarm of lake flies.
Black flecks pile onto my tan slacks,
hurl themselves into the dark colors
of my shirt.
 
Wings brush my cheeks, my hair.
I zigzag away from the water,
I try to swat the flies away
but the swarm stays with me
like accumulating grief.


Under Siege by Judith Waller Carroll   
 
The squirrels have ceased gnawing on the siding
to chase each other up the pine, around the mimosa,
under the ornamental grass. They stop
in mid-motion, as if they are playing freeze tag,
when I walk out to check the mail.

A spotted fawn with a mouthful of hosta leaves
retreats to the driveway, but the chipmunk
doesn’t even look up from his post
by the storage room door, now secured
against him with a strip of chicken wire.
 
The hornets are back in the breezeway.
There’s a web above our bedroom window
with a brown recluse spider in the center.
It feels like a tick has hitched a ride on my hip.
 
A pale yellow oak leaf veined in magenta
coasts down from the sky
as if Mother Nature has sent a letter
offering a temporary truce. 


Murder by Rose Mary Boehm
 
The snake was colorless but regal
when she lifted her head on that blue tarpaulin.
She had taken possession of the pool.
The dogs stayed well back,
growling.
 
Reptilian brain. The most ancient
of our brains. Below the neocortex,
it relates to the left and the right
hemispheres, sitting atop the spinal column
and enabled our survival for millions of years.
 
There was beauty in her stillness.
And yet I pondered death.
 
One sunny morning she was about
to slither across
the kitchen threshold.
I still feel
the snake’s compact muscle’s resistance
under the hard-edged spade
I brought down on her.
Again.
Again.
Again.

first published in Red Tree Review


My Takeaway from a Hornet by Elaine Sorrentino

One, maybe two extra minutes
to tuck in a cool sheet, light blanket
before scooping lunch money

off the kitchen counter
and skipping off to school
might have circumvented the sting.

Looking back, I wonder─
while I was munching my lunch,
hurrying through history, running
 
at recess, was my ferocious friend
plotting his undercover ambush,
anticipating the moment

he’d invade my fleshy thigh
with his painful histamine?
Did I breach his new hiding place,

surprise him into instinctive maneuvers?
That swollen, throbbing leg cemented
a change to my ten-year-old morning ritual;

aware of the consequences, I never take
for granted the gift of a well-made bed.
I should send that hornet a thank you note.

First published by Silver Birch Press


FEAR by Lori Levy

It begins with the ordinary: girl watching
a cat.  No monsters or ghosts, no crash of thunder. 
Just the girl, six and curious, lying crosswise
on a bed, head over the edge
to get a closer view of a Siamese.  She is
staring her trust into its eyes when, suddenly,
the cat lunges, glaring and growling, and it’s over 
for the girl, who, from that point on—though nothing has happened,
no blood, no scar—can’t look at a cat
without seeing a tiger ready to pounce,
scratch, gouge out her eyes.  She grows up,
becomes a woman who quakes in the presence of felines;
who begs her friends, if they want her to visit,
to lock their beasts in an upstairs bedroom.
Later she marries, has children, and lives in Jerusalem
where a bag, unclaimed, could be a bomb 
and, worse, cats are known to leap out of dumpsters.
She stands far back and heaves her load, praying
for the peaceful thump of trash hitting trash.

No one escapes it. One runs from snakes, another
from mice.  Airplanes, heights, speaking in public.
We tremble and pale.  Cancer, bees, the Middle East.
And my teen-age son,
who’s six foot one and nearly invincible,
who snowboards, surfs, and rises early
to be first in line for bungee jumping,
calls me—the one who freezes near a cat—to
Come kill the spider! he’s spotted in the tub.
I carry the creature away in a tissue, suppressing
a smile at the daddy-longlegs.

Previously published in Taproot Literary Journal.


July Afternoon Attack by Joan Leotta
 
Life in a house built
in the middle of
what was once
a drained swamp is good—
until it is not.
 
As if they were waiting
like racehorses for the start bell,
a veritable herd, mass, cloud, wave,
of brown ants swarmed down
from an invisible space between
kitchen wall and ceiling
spreading over the wall.
Regiments broke off before
hitting the floor in orderly
rows toward pantry, glass cupboard,
then our kitchen island where I
stunned hapless human
in process of unpacking
groceries creamed in horror.
 
My husband came running with
our paltry single can of insecticide spray
which I used to hold them at bay
liberating the rolodex from our back counter.
Reinforcements in the form of
Our pest service soon arrived.
Our tech, who knew my fear of six-legged
creatures, sprayed, swept up, and spread
gel that survivors would carry to the nest.
“Good thing you were home when
they swarmed in, “he told me. “I’ve been
to places where folks were away and
ants came in to escape the heat and well
the entire floor was a churning mass of them
when they returned.”
 
Vigilance became my byword
Knowing that the cool of our AC
enticed them—well I could not blame them
for that but their attack compelled me,
no matter what the heat to daily
walk around the house
mumbling—"outside is yours, inside is ours”
as often as I could for the rest of the
days we lived there.
Even now, a thousand miles from there,
when July temps rise, a cold
chill of remembered fear
raises hackles on my neck.
I’m never without a can of ant spray.
 

Night of the Snake by Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

Tandem poem to Nissim Ezekiel’s poem ‘Night of the Scorpion’
Written In memory of my beloved father
And for my son, Siddharth (Sid), so he would know what transpired that night.
 
It was not Lawrence’s snake
Waiting patiently for me at the water trough
But a different snake camouflaged
On the stone wall outside our home
In the gently rolling hills
Across the gleaming lake
The night dark with the pouring rain
 Fear was a knot in my heart.
 
He seemed to have a right to be there
To be at home
His name on the nameplate,
I address him as ‘he’, unable to distinguish
A male snake from a female one.
 
 The innocent child asleep in my arms
Knew nothing of the danger
Posed to him by the creature
Resting like a still-life painting
Etched in curves of slithery colors
An artist’s rendering of beauty and evil
Simultaneously.
 
It did not move or
Rear its head to
Hiss or spit poisonous venom
At the sleeping child,
Wet from his soaking clothes.
 
My other companion
Began to dance madly
A Rumpelstiltskin of fear,
While frantic to appease the curled one
Begged her to remain still
And simply to utter a silent prayer
To whatever God she believed in.
 
Unaware, the child’s father
Watched a movie with the school children
In the hall above,
Unsuspecting of the drama unfolding below.
Turning the key in the lock
The house door silently opened
Granting safe entry to mother and child,
My companion having fled to safer terrain
Leaving the snake at repose, immovable.
No neighbors to help or witness the spectacle
No peasants to chant their incantations
To pray the snake would return
to its snake home.
 
Creeping outside once more
With beating heart and stealthy pace,
to narrate the tale to the child’s father
The sleeping child, now dry,
Oblivious to the imminent danger
From the curled serpent on the stone wall
He had gone from whence he came
Into the dark recesses of his own mind,
Curled on someone else’s door perhaps,
Or waiting silently for an unsuspecting prey-moment
No creature or human understanding could comprehend.
 
Thank goodness for Divine intervention
That granted protection to our precious child.
We wrapped the bundle tighter,
Afraid it might still be watching us,
From somewhere.
 
Love for my country does not diminish
despite its scorpions, snakes
and other creepy crawlies!
 
Note: Tandem poetry is a genre I have created for poetry I write alongside my father’s Poetry. The subjects may be similar since they are inspired by him, but the content of the poems are mine.

Four Departed Loved Ones Who Visit Me in Dreams

 Joan Leotta

 

  My Dad

By Joan Leotta

The death of loved ones, first my grandmother, who I loved dearly, then my wonderful father, my dear mother, and devastatingly, our beloved son, Joe, were events that sent me into spirals of sadness. The spirals still come, but some relief for the grief also arrives in my thinking about our good times together and writing about them. I also talk to them, sometimes simply a few words where I am, in the store or passing by a place we both enjoyed and they also talk to me, mostly in dreams.

Below, I relate some poems about these dreams/and comforting memories in the order of their deaths. I believe death is powerless to sever our ties with ones we love. 

Grandma.

Grandma’s soup and kitchen figure prominently in many of my poems and dreams
Not long after I wrote the poem below, I dreamt of Grandma, realized I could talk to her again, and in fact not long after did dream of her and her soup and recorded that in the haiku that follows this poem.
 
Listening to Radio in the Kitchen
 
On the top of her kitchen cabinet,
usually “on”, Grandma’s
beige Bakelite radio, daily
blared out the travails of
Stella Dallas or the sweet
melodies of an Italian music show.
 
I often sat at her gray
Formica table to watch her
turn plain vegetables into soup,
knead flour into loaves of bread, or
clip the paper top off of a tall
tin container of fresh ricotta.
 
The fresh ricotta was
what I loved best—
its cream often had risen to top
and if I had been good that day,
Grandma would let me
skim off some to eat in my
 
favorite periwinkle Fiesta ware bowl
before her spoon stirred the
rest of the cream back
down into the container for
her to could transform into
filling for her homemade ravioli.
 
Her radio is gone, but
I make my own soup, her recipe,
and spoon it into that
same Fiesta ware bowl.
while listening to podcasts on my radio,
sitting in my own kitchen,
and wishing I could talk to Grandma.
 (This first appeared in Verse virtual, 2023)                       
 
late night sneezes–
I dream of grandma’s soup
wake up well
 
 
My Dad

Dreaming about my father has taken many forms—midnight suppers with him, Dad coming to (a pharmacist) advise me on how to help cure my cold’s lingering drippy nose (saline spray to stop nasal drip), and in a time of anxiety, in this poem, he reminded me, he and other beloveds wait for me on "the other side."
 
Dreaming Across the Styx
 
My father walks into my view.
He is in a long, narrow room,
wearing his tan trench coat.
A finely blocked felt hat
tops his jet-black, wavy hair.
He tamps down the tobacco
in his cherry wood pipe, then turns
to  me, his brown eyes twinkling.
He steps back into
a poorly lit hallway I do not recognize.
Dad removes his coat and
sits in an orange plastic chair.
Coat on his lap,
he draws softly on the pipe and
nods toward me .
Cherry -flavored tobacco smoke
soothes me.
Dad is waiting for me,
as always.
Through theatre classes
piano lessons, dance lessons.
Patiently enmeshed in his own thoughts,
he waits without complaint.
 
Suddenly I wake.
I'm at home.
No hallway. No chair.
No cherry tobacco.
Only the smell of coffee.
My father smiles from his photo.
Some say dreaming across the Styx means
Ferryman Charon will soon arrive.
            But not for me.
            Instead of Charon,
my own beloved father
waits, patiently, to
ferry me across the Styx
in his white 1960 Thunderbird.
 
First published, Red Wolf Journal, Summer 2014
Included in my chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon
 
 
Mom

She and I traveled together because my dad did not like to travel. About thirty years after that, I recreated the same photo with my daughter, Jennie, and me. One note--for the longest time, my mother did not make an appearance and her poem explains why. (Interestingly, she began to appear in my dreams after I wrote this ekphrastic poem).
 
 
Magritte’s Apple Explains It All  
After Magritte’s Apple

One glance at this canvas and I knew the answer
to the conundrum troubling my heart:
Why in the twenty years since she has left this earth,
has my mother not visited me in a dream?

Dreams, those moments when the conscious mind relaxes
when life’s everyday reality joins with matter deep inside
bridging that line between the known and mystery--
in that land of dreams I’ve often watched, met, even talked with
my grandmother, father, aunts, and son. 
All of these beloved departeds have spoken to me. 
My son has directly addressed me more than once.
Only my mother has never appeared. Never even walked
across my mental stage as a cameo.

Occasionally, I admit, I worry that perhaps she doesn’t visit
because I did not love her enough in life for her to remain connected.
But how can that be, when I know I loved her then and still
love her very much?
In life, we laughed and argued, had much to say to one another.
I wear her jewelry, cook her recipes, , chuckle over her sayings,
and, regularly, even though it's been twenty years,  when 
I open the drawers of her wooden vanity, the aroma of Youth Dew
wafts up to meet me. 

Now, Magritte has helped me understand.
My mother does not need to wait for night, for dreams to return.
She fills my days in many ways.
She does not come in dreams because she has never really left 
my waking moments.
She fills the room of my consciousness, my crisp green apple
of a mother, larger than life—even in death.
 
Son

Joseph Gabriel Leotta, 1982-2002

The death of our son was the most difficult of these four for me. At times I wondered if I would ever have joy again in life. The poem below, a found poem of sorts since is distilled form a longer essay with the same title, recounts a dream and more where he comes to me and the poem tells how I found joy again through a memory of Joey learning to hang glide in the Outer Banks.
 
 
The Day I Learned to Fly
 
On our Outer Banks Vacation trip in March of 2000,
Joe was most excited about learning to hang glide.
I accompanied him to the high dunes learning center,
stood close to the to the group to snap pictures,
heard the instructor tell them,
"The key to successful flight is to be still,
to let the wind lift you.”
 
Although I did not know it then, it was our last vacation.
Two years later in March, Joe was hit by a car while
crossing the street at Virginia Tech and died a few days later.
In my grief, I struggled with simply living every day.
The idea that I could once again function normally,
even experience joy, seemed impossible—until I recalled the words of
Joe’s flight instructor—
“Be still and let the wind lift you.”
From that moment, I began to focus on God,
on others, instead of my grief, on good memories,
let the Spirit work in my heart to lift me.
Indeed, just as Joe, going airborne in a glider
I learned to sail above my grief,
This world’s troubles—that day I learned to fly,
began again to experience the joy’s exhilaration.
Joe began to come—visiting through dreams
first telling me, not to worry I’d failed as a mom--that
indeed, I had taught him to look both ways before
crossing a street, saying he had simply
not done so that night. I began to
chat with him by day, and in quiet moments,
such as when seated at our dining table,
writing, or having coffee, I was rewarded with
feeling his hand on my shoulder,
patting me as he did when in life he
would walk by and again I could
hear him murmur as he touched me,
“Love you, Mom, Love you.”
The day I realized joy, a part of love
does not cease when loved ones pass
 into the next world, that we too can fly,
powered by the joy of our love for them
if we do not struggle against it, because
because they are still with us, that is the
day I learned to fly—joyously.
 
 
 

Book of the Week

 buck naked is the opposite of hate Sheila Na Gig Editions (2026) by Joe Cottonwood

 

  
 

Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

It isn’t often that I read a title of a book and instantly know who authored the book without even reading the byline. The minute I read: buck naked is the opposite of hate, I knew it was a Joe Cottonwood poetry collection full of crazy characters we love to love and hate and sympathize with as we read their raw, honest, heartfelt and heartbreaking stories.  Joe has a talent for telling a story that makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Like Hemingway, in language anyone can understand, Joe explores the human condition through the lives of everyday people he meets in his childhood and as a carpenter, neighbor and nature lover. As we frolic through fun redneck country, he introduces us to bullies, barefooted Blue Grass lovers, beer drinkers and blue-collar workers with dirt under their fingernails.  He gives a new perspective on life. It seems the older Joe gets, the wiser he gets. I treasure the book he autographs: To Sister Sharon, even though he is recovering from shoulder surgery and read it cover to cover, feeling like I am with family as I listen to the doves chattering by the pond and imagine Brother Joe doing the same in his house under the Redwoods.


About the book by Joe Cottonwood

Buck naked poems wear the innocence of youth, the wisdom of nature, the experience of craft. They come of a lifetime in the building trades, of sawdust embedded beneath fingernails. Of the questions of children and the adventure of their raising. Of the wisdom of birds, the pawprint of raccoon, the loyalty of dog and the wariness of cat. Of romance, of a lifetime love. Of digging trenches, connecting wires, banging nails. Of a reverence for trees, of the guilt of slicing wood, of the pleasure of providing comfort and shelter. Of ancestors, of ghosts. Of, each day, seeking the humane. 


Praise from fellow poets.

I don’t often envy other writers, but there’s Joe Cottonwood. To read his poems, you’d think he’s lived every life I imagined but never quite got to. It isn’t just that he’s a mesmerizing storyteller, it’s that he shows you in poem after poem what it means to be human, to have a sense of compassion, to be a good person because it’s right. And does it in poetry that says “Stay here a while. See what I see, feel what I feel.” His reverence for nature and for craftsmanship, for the good that is in the people he writes about, is a quality that is too seldom found. My advice? Sit down with this book of poetry and step into a world where even pain can be gentle. Then thank Joe for letting you in.

—j.lewis (Jim Lewis): Editor of Verse-Virtual and author of “all these things are broken.”

I never know where I'll be going when I read a Joe Cottonwood poem. It's as though he pulled up in a pickup truck, shouted "Get in!" and off we barrel down a dirt road chunky with rocks and storm-torn branches, a ragtag assemblage of dogs barking in the back. Joe's poems are fresh and unroasted, like he just thought them up a minute ago, right there in your company. When you join him while he smoothens pine "sweet as sugar" or solders a copper pipe outside a McMansion, you'll share Joe's reverence for bird's-eye maple, the warmth of water, and for the English language itself.

----Shoshauna Shy, author of  Shortcut to Thief River Falls

Like his fellow Californian John Steinbeck, Joe writes of common people with an uncommon grace. Joe's poems are tales of daily life — of his wife and children, his friends and neighbors. He illuminates the elemental truths which connect us all. Reverent and loving. Joe's humanism and strong heart suffuse his work, and through his poems he finds, embraces, and shares with us that bit of the sacred which is woven into the ordinary.

— Roderick Bates, Editor, Rat's Ass Review

 

The 92 pages of poems is divided in four sections: In Muddy Water, Rough Cut, Swallowed by Lions and Let Go Like a Dove. 

 

Some of my favorite poems:

My Song Americana

I come to you barefoot
I chew bluegrass, drink corn
My rain is muddy water

My hands are raw from picking cotton
My lungs are black with coal
My farm is dust

I follow rivers by raft, 
herd longhorns by horseback, 
ride boxcars over endless plain

I killed the native and the buffalo
I regret
I sing of what remains

I am outlaw—I seek justice
I celebrate love—I betray it
I despise the rich—I want riches

I raise children in rags 
They outgrow my front porch, 
my tumbledown shack
I shame them with my twang, 
my holler of blues

My children trade tractors for Teslas
They bring the south north
They take the west east

My children return with fresh children 
who throw off shoes, who paddle kayaks, 
who jump into muddy water 
and come up clean


Lester and Maggie and the 4-Wheel Bed

Gruff gray Lester and Navaho Maggie 
have no offspring but treat me like one. 
For Lester I knock down a wall 
and install fat rubber wheels under 
the walnut monster of a double bed
they've shared 60 years—so he can roll 
Maggie to the dining room and kitchen. 
Magpie of Dawn, Lester says. 
She keeps an eye on me. 
Maggie's delighted, room to room 
joking and chattering sometimes in Navaho 
and you get used to the scent of urine.

Rolling is difficult for Lester who limps 
and later more cumbersome with oxygen tanks 
so I'm replacing cupped floor boards 
when Maggie who is watching me work 
points to a pair of coyotes—
one large wary male, one smaller calm female—
outside the window sitting on haunches 
by the broken-down tractor staring right at us, 
not unusual for a ranch house outside town but
then we hear a gurgling sound like water in a drain. 
Lester a big man leaps to Maggie's side. 
Bends his head to her heart while outside 
in broad daylight those coyotes start to howl. 
The two. Aroo-oo. 
It tingles. 
The air itself seems to glow. 
Lester grabs his rifle from the wall and runs
to the window but those coyotes don't flinch.
Aroo-oo. 
He lowers the gun with shaky hands, says 
They're calling her home.

A couple weeks later after the service 
Lester in his old wedding suit tight and ragged 
hands me a cardboard box containing the wheels 
he's removed and there's a note: 
For the next. 
Help them go home.
Now I'm no coyote but that box is 
on the top shelf in the garage. 
I'm telling you, son, so you'll know.


Walter Johnson fires a fastball,
Elvis Presley crowds the plate

At a tender age you learn to glaze windows 
when you pitch tennis balls to the brick wall 
of your house. You learn curveball and fast, 
you try the knuckle, sweep glass. 

You learn to hate the mulberries 
that squish over the pitching mound. 

You play next door with Mary Anne Morningstar
and you love the Elvis songs blaring 
from her tinny transistor radio
as much as you hate the menacing hillbilly accent 
of her full bourbon father who yodels 
“Love me tay-ender, Love me troo-a-oo-a-oo.” 

You find you can improve your arm 
only as far as your body will allow, 
one fat pitch can erase ten good ones, 
there’s always some batter with a better eye, 
some coach with a mean streak. 

You learn your back yard was formerly 
farmland owned by Walter Johnson, 
one of the greatest pitchers of all time. 
Your mulberries fed his chickens. 
May his spirit feed your arm. 

You develop hair down there
and see Mary Anne burst into tears
when you ask to see hers.
You jump back as she launches 
a stone like a fastball into the radio 
smashing it to jewels of plastic.

You learn she hates Elvis 
and she hates her dad for his pelvis
and she loves God instead, 
and you think maybe you love Mary Anne 
like Elvis loves his momma
in a tender non-icky way.

You learn to cut glass, to curl putty with a knife.
You learn Walter Johnson after baseball 
became an incompetent small time politician 
and Elvis in Vegas turned squishy as mulberry. 

You learn the easy passage from genius to fool.
Constellations fade with the dawn. 
Remember Mary Anne. 
Remember the stars.

……

Note: When Walter Johnson pitched for the Washington Senators he had a farm in Maryland. The house where I grew up was built on that farmland.


Working graveyard shift 

my sleep is nuts
so on nights off I walk the dog at 3 a.m.
hoping a German shepherd normalizes me
except Quinn growls at the cop
who stays in his cruiser
talking through the open window
just letting me know somebody called 
from one of those dark houses
but there’s no law against walking at 3 a.m.
so have a good night.

Sometimes I jog the golf course under quiet stars. 
I let Quinn off the leash.
Together we run over grass. 
Even without a canine nose I love the smell, 
the sound of sleeping snoring chlorophyll.  

One night I’m running when the sprinklers start.
Immediately before I can think better
I pull off my clothes, every stitch.
I run. So free! It’s fantastic, the dog agrees 
until I trip
and roll
but that’s fantastic too
except the bruises
and suddenly the spotlight, the cop.

I have mud on my body, grass in my hair.
The sprinklers keep chug-chug-chugging in circles
splat with cold bullets across my butt
as the cop writes out a ticket 
for an unleashed dog. That’s all, 
because there’s no law against
running through sprinklers 
on graveyard shift
when you’re white.


Nov 22

My brother with dementia 
outside a bakery arrested for peeing 
into a newspaper rack and forgetting 
to refasten his pants which brings him 
not to a police station but a hospital 
where I find him and take custody. 
The nurse asks the standard questions 
to see if he is oriented such as “Who is president?” 
“That asshole.”
“Which asshole?”
“Um—the ugly one.”
“What year is it today?”
[Shrug.] 
“What month is it?”
[Shrug.] 
“Do you know what the day is?”
“No, what?”
“Today is Thursday, November twenty-second.”
“They shot him.” 
“Who?”
“The president. They shot him.”
The young nurse is puzzled. 
“Kennedy,” I explain. 
“Well,” says the nurse, “do you know where you are?”
“Yes,” my brother says, “I’m in the fucking hospital.”
The nurse smiles. “Okay, you may go.”
“They shot him,” he mutters all the way home.
Because some things you never forget.


Shirtless Dusty 

I first meet Dusty on a beach 
beside the Chesapeake Bay 
in this photo where 
he’s dating my cousin Liz 
who suddenly grew a body. 
Dusty’s the one with chest hair. 
I’m the kid with glasses.

In this photo Vietnam shirtless again 
he’s on a river boat patrolling 
writes Stay in college. 
Stay the hell out of here. 

Next here’s him shirtless and Liz shirted 
in the house he restored on steelworker’s pay 
building war machines that float. 
Bankers stole his pension 
when they looted Bethlehem Steel. 
Combat memories haunt
while Dusty raises goats
until the city shuts him down.

Here’s Dusty an old man on Facebook
with his face peeling off, flesh
flaking under cammo fatigues
posting paranoid gun-rights crap
so I unfriend him.

Here at the Chesapeake Bay again
Liz is dumping Dusty’s ashes 
from a borrowed sailboat.
Agent Orange kills him 
though the doctors won’t admit it. 
His life like firing a rifle at the sky: 
a disturbance the air closes over. 
We open our shirts, 
we feel the bullet strike. 
Here. Right here.


The Opposite of Hate

Singin’ in the shower.  
Peanut butter. Daisies. 
Weathered barn boards
are the opposite of hate.

Playmate. Roller skate. 
Rhyme is the opposite of hate.

Balloons. The only thing 
you should ever blow up 
is a balloon.

Skinny-dips. 
Swimmin’ hole, hot afternoon.
Buck naked is the opposite of hate.


Steak, Well-Done

Selected on the hoof
after peering in the eye, 
how Uncle Merrel shops for beef. 
Walked by rope to an Amish man 
who butchers, loads 500 pounds of meat 
to Merrel’s 2-wheel trailer pulled by 
smoke-popping bare-bones tractor 
to a freezer in town.

A few cuts Merrel brings home and cooks 
special for us, his west coast nephew and family 
who followed the Oregon Trail backwards
for dinner which is mid-afternoon 
on farm country time in Missouri. 
Back home we don’t eat meat
but we don’t mention.

Uncle Merrel is a patched old machine 
pushed too hard for too long, 
threads of flesh bound in scraps of denim. 
Sweats red oil. Shakes when idle, 
then at top speed he groans and grunts.

Steak, says Merrel, oughtn’t be bloody inside, 
you want it cooked but if you order well-done 
in a restaurant they get mad at you 
and flame it too fast so it’s burned outside 
but still bloody in the middle. 

We appreciate we didn’t have to evaluate 
this steak in the eye. Uncle Merrel 
cooks with time, with sizzling fat. 
Well-done, still juicy but not bloody. 
The farm way. And golly it’s good.


The Stranger in the Car Behind

A mighty gust of fog rips 3 bicycles 
from the rope-and-bungee web atop my van
to fly past the rear window as my gut drops
in a center lane on the Golden Gate Bridge 
so I stop. God help me, I stop. 

Jump out. Run back 
to where the stranger in the car behind 
blessedly not a tailgater braked in time 
now has put on his blinkers and hustled forward 
as together under steel cables 
while wet wind howls with diesel smoke 
as cars roar by on both sides 
while an oil tanker glides beneath
he says not one word in the quick desperation
helps gather 3 bent bicycles from the roadway 
which I stuff on top of 3 scared children 
as the stranger to whom I said not one word 
not a thank you not a moment for it
runs back to his car in the mad din of about 30 seconds 
while I hop into the driver’s seat 
and stomp on the gas and — gone. 

And the stranger whoever 
never asked to be a hero 
pumped adrenaline scrambled amid traffic 
where no trucks or busses plowed into us 
survived and drove on and — gone. 

So to you right here right now reading this poem — 
Yes, you —
To all you strangers in all the cars behind 
let me say in advance: 
Thank you. 
Bless you for what without hesitation you will do.
Thank you so much.

Combatting Cancer with Kindness

Elaine Sorrentino

 

 
Elaine Sorrentino at Pink Lemonade presentation

By Elaine Sorrentino

 I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2006 and again in October 2019.  I've started dreading the month of October.  I've written a number of poems to help me process what it's been like navigating cancer. Fellow breast cancer survivor/poet Dzvinia Orlowsky and I collaborated to create a program called Pink LemonAid which presents breast cancer-inspired art, mostly poetry and prose, but music as well.  It was ironic that two days after the first presentation of this program, I was diagnosed again.  October of 2026, we'll present our next Pink LemonAid.  Proceeds from books sold at the event will help women needing transportation to chemo.  We've both been there and have experienced kindness from the most surprising places.

These poems show my journey:


Who Doesn’t Love Positive?

They said
be more positive
you’ll be happier
you’ll live longer
you’ll have more friends
you’ll be more successful, confident
you’ll lower your risk of disease
you’ll age slower, more gracefully
you’ll reduce your chances of depression
you’ll inspire others to be more positive.
So, I embraced positive,
became the epitome of positive,
simply oozed positive¬−
as did my cancer biopsy,
my world altered forever by positive,
betraying me the moment
positive became something…different.
This new positive produced 
a scarred and dimpled gland
burnt, useless, wire-like veins
two different cup sizes
unwanted tattoos in intimate places
rejected “organ donor” status
blood now worthless to anyone.
Yet, beyond physical changes,
what made my upbeat heart weep
were glances tinged with unwelcome pity,
and yearly reminders that I could be positive again.


Searching for a Lifeboat 
            during treatment
 
I am the wonder ball
the hot potato 
the short straw
 
as desirable 
as a bruised apple
in a fruit basket,
 
no one volunteers to steer
the ship of my wellbeing,
instead, the medical crew
 
references paragraph three
where it says this is the least 
to which they're obligated;
 
no longer their concern
I am passed on to the next port,
island-hopping for health care.


Buzz off the Buzz Off

Put the razor down.
Ask yourself
Why am I doing this?
If your undertaking is for me,
don’t waste your time;
your gesture,
intended as supportive,
only serves to hurl
me into melancholy
You are my mirror,
my support, my rock,
and your follicle-free
scalp reminds me
of my grueling struggle.
Keep your full head
of hair, and remind me
instead, of my reward
at the end of my journey.
First published in The Writer's Newsletter, 


Alternate Hair
           
It didn’t matter who knew.
I wasn’t attempting to hide my truth.
 
This bouncy, brown, easy-to-wear mop
preserved my freedom to buy groceries
 
without cruel whispers
look at the lady in the cereal aisle

her dome’s smooth as honeydew in produce,
it allowed me it to cling to a smidgeon
 
of normalcy in a stretch
that felt like daily ransacking;
 
scalp enhancement staved off
pity, questioning stares; this patient
 
embraced dinner out with her sweetie,
tossed aside needles and scalpels
 
to step back into the world of the living,
savoring a moment of sweet vanity.

First published in Verse Virtual

 

Uninvited

Cancer comes knocking
once every thirteen years,
and I say no, thank you,
but it heaves itself
into my body anyway
refusing to leave
until I escort it to the exit,
thrust it into the dark,
and nail that door shut.
Don’t come scratching again.


Eye for an Eye
            post radiation
 
After I silently counted
the last “six Mississippi”
under the linear accelerator,
lowered my arms
and rolled off the table,
the technician tossed
a fistful of confetti in the air
and handed me a certificate
of completion.
 
In private that night
after unwrapping
that tender breast
itchy and inflamed,
soothing it with salve,
I folded the beige parchment
once, then once again,
knelt before the fireplace,
threw open the flue,
and struck a match.

First published on The Keeping Room, Minerva Rising


Two Views

cancer
maintenance
drugs
stole
my eyebrows,
thinned
my hair,
weakened
my bones
cancer
maintenance
drugs
lengthened
my life,
restored
my hope,
permitted
more time
to nag
my kids

 

Growing up in Sheffield, England

Lynn White

 
Lynn White as a child

By Lynn White

The first home I remember is the one described in 'Bath Time'. It was in Sheffield inner city, a stone's throw from the house my mother had grown up in and lived in until the death of her mother in 1941. The photo is taken opposite my home and you can clearly see the ringlets described in 'Sore Fingers'. Just before my 6th birthday when we moved to a Council House on the northern outskirts. This was to be my home until I left to go to college and my parents home until their deaths. It was a 10 minute walk from my auntie's where my mother had lived after the death of her mother. Opposite was the rough ground where 'Red Car' is located. Further down the wild area met the 'bottom road' which divides the houses from the countryside. Coming up the other side the street is lower and the wild area forms the 'cliffs' of 'Running Wild'. My school, till the age of 11, was 10 minutes in another direction. I would have been 8 when we had the Student Teacher described in 'Such Nonsense'. Another auntie lived in a village on the south side of Sheffield and the setting for ' School Shoes' is there.


Bath Time

The bath used to hang on the wall
in the scullery.
Not our scullery.
His scullery.
We borrowed it from Mr Neil
who rented us the rooms
at the front of his house.
One down, one up.
My mother would knock on his door
and he would lift it down for her.
But she had to carry it to our 
living room.
It was heavy,
made of zinc she said.
It took a lot of water
which had to be carried from the outside
tap and then heated on our gas ring.
It took a lot of hot water
and had to be filled 
and emptied
with a jug.
Sometimes it was just too much work
for her
and she washed me in a bowl
as I sat on her fat lap.
It was snuggly.
I preferred it 
that way
really.

First published in Visual Verse


Sore Fingers

At night my long hair was wrapped
in rags - pristine strips
of thick white cloth.
Sore fingers, my mother called them.
My unruly curls bandaged
into six stiff sore fingers,
to be unravelled in the morning
to reveal
shiny ringlets
ready
to be tied in bunches
with broad, bright, bias cut ribbons.

I wanted plaits.
All the heroines
in my childhood 
books had plaits
I dreamt about plaits
fantasised about plaits.
No more sore fingers.
I wanted plaits.

Sometimes I untied the ringlets,
to my mothers displeasure,
and made untidy, unsuccessful plaits.
Plaits would ruin my hair, my mother said.
Would spoil it’s natural curl,
destroy it
in some
way
never
specified.

I didn’t care.
I hated ringlets.
I hated sore fingers.
I wanted plaits.

First published in Silver Birch Press


Red Car

The abandoned car stood on the waste ground,
rusting away, doors hanging off, leather seats ripped.
The children played there on warm summer days
but I was not allowed.
The place was dangerous
and the children were rough.
It was the first time I had ever been in a car.
I sat behind the wheel to drive it making
engine noises like a bus.
It was a black car.
In those days all cars were black.
Any colour you like, so long as it’s black.
I thought that a red one would have been nicer.

First published in Blognostics


Running Wild

She had been one of my mothers best friends.
Her daughter was in my class at school
and one of my best friends.
But I was rarely allowed to call on her
to play out.

She lived in a street opposite ‘the cliffs’,
which when I’ve been there since,
weren’t cliffs at all,
just a steep area
overgrown
with bushes 
and small tees
with an overgrown field above.

It was great fun scrambling around there.
“Dangerous”, my mother said,
“and those children
are allowed
to run wild”!

But it was great fun while it lasted!

First published in Mocking Owl Roost


School Shoes

I loved the pond near my auntie’s.
Just a short walk from the village.
I could get right up close 
and peer into the water.
That was how I saw the frogs.

They were not easy to catch but
I managed it eventually, one at a time.
I kissed each carefully
to make sure they were real frogs,
didn’t want one of those prince things.

Then I put them in my shoe and placed
my other shoe on top
so that they couldn’t jump out.
I walked back barefoot 
over the rough ground
and the village street.

I discovered that my mother and auntie
were afraid of frogs.
Perhaps they would have preferred princes.
They didn’t like the barefoot walk either.
My dirty feet would show them up, 
they said.

And worse! They were my school shoes,
which were also my only shoes
and now they were smelly with pond water
and frogs!
But my uncle was cool
said they were good for the garden.
So I watched them leapfrog through his garden.

I hoped they’d be happy there.
He told me they were,
but I never saw them again.

First published in School Shoes, Four Feathers Press


Such Nonsense

We had a new teacher,
a student still in college.
He read us a long poem. 
I listened carefully trying
to make sense of it.
It was funny.
Was it meant to be funny?
or was the laughter of derision,
to what sounded like nonsense.
Laughter seemed allowed
and that was unusual.
School was not a place for fun.
Well, maybe it was nonsense
but I loved the imagery
and the colours of the words.
I asked if 'pea green' was
the colour of mushy peas
from the chip shop,
or was it those in pods
fresh from the garden.
Nothing was clear,
but it was fun.

First published in Medusa’s Kitchen 

Book of the Week

 Orinoco Plains (dancing girl press, 2025) by Lorraine Caputo

 

 
Comments By Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

In Orinoco Plains, Lorraine Caputo, the traveling troubadour, takes
readers on a magical musical tour through the Llanos of Venezuela in this entertaining and exhilarating poetry collection.

About the book:

With her latest collection of travel poetry, Orinoco Plains, Lorraine Caputo invites you on a journey through the Llanos of Venezuela. This region, traversed by the mighty Orinoco River, teems with wildlife. Roseate spoonbills and black ibis, caimans and iguanas, anteaters and capybara are just some of the fauna we shall see. And we will witness the lives of the people of these plains, celebrating feast days, dancing, playing music, going to school, traveling – and those displaced from their ancestral homes. Come and enjoy the adventure!

About the author:

Wandering troubadour Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear internationally in over 500 journals and 24 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Santa Marta Ayres (Origami Poems Project, 2024). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. She is a Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honoree (2011), and multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. 

Some of my favorite poems:

LLANO VIGNETTES

I. 
Black-crested, golden-throated large bird sits on a fence post. 
Verdant pasture stretches to forest. 
White egrets stroll amidst white cattle grazing.

II.
Three men stand mid-river. 
Muddied waters hasten past muscular legs. 
The middle hombre reaches to cast a net.

III.
White sun shielded by humid clouds. The water-logged land 
is flat, flat to any horizon & dusted by white long-plumage flowers. 
A flock of garzas swoops over these llanos.

IV.
Three men ride atop a load of sugar cane. The truck-wind whips 
the dried blades & their shirts.

V.
Early afternoon, egrets fill the small-leaf trees edging a plowed field. 
The come-again rainy season swells reborn swamps of lavender-spiked 
flowers & lazy streams.

Perched atop un árbol, a hawk-sized bird, chestnut-colored body, 
cream-colored head.

VI.
The two-lane highway slices across the thick landscape of thick woods, 
thick pastures thick with zebu. Joropos play on the radio, we dance 
around potholes.Trees & lakes thick with waterfowl – herons, scarlet ibis, storks.

VII.
Ay, how can I describe the beauty of this land when I 
don’t know the names of the birds, the trees, the plants …?

VIII.
Beings quickly breach the dirty-mirror surface or duck beneath concentric 
circles forming. In one lakelet, a babo, snout in air, slowly swims
towards a white heron.

IX.
But I can recognize the trees of civilization: mango, palm, banana, flamboyán …
& in the mist is a duo, a trio of houses

X.
Every now & again, in some stretch of the middle of this nowhere, 
we come across a blue truck, a bus or yet another truck broken down.

XI.
Dragonflies dance in the now-mid-afternoon, across the road, around us. 
A breeze ripples the water & grasses. The countless lagunillas with a solitary 
or more babos. On one small island sun three, mouths open. 

& this llano soil, bone-white, blood-red, engraved by these herds of cattle, 
these flocks of birds & iguanas.



MANGO SUNSET

Mango sunset . . . . . full
moon arising high over
the llanos . . . . . balance
 
Mounting clouds veil la
Luna. The air vibrates with
the calls of toads &
cicada. Lightning pulses
profound indigo heavens.
 
Suddenly this world
stills. & then the breeze, stirring
the lance-shaped leaves of
those trees that tower like the
thunderheads. Heavy fruit sway.
 
& steadily the
rains slide throughout the night ‘til
pale mango sunrise.


SONATA FOR A LATE AFTERNOON

Narrow old-city streets lined with rainbow
houses. In the rooms of one, lilac-
colored, youth learn music. Boys tune their
guitars. A boy sits in the window
looking out  to the cobbled street. Chords
of cuatro, bars of French horn, sweet
voices drift through the sultry late day.

GLIMPSING YOUR LIVES

In this port town built by foreign mining companies, not too far from the US-ranch-style former housing of their executives, behind strip mall stores displaying hundreds of styles of shoes, the latest fashions & electronics.

I glimpse your lives
as we speed by

In that treeless lot several dozen indigenous families live in shelters made of sapling posts, perhaps with walls of cloth, plastic sacks, cardboard, with roofs of tied-down plastic sheeting billowing in the wind of deep-grey clouds, with hard-packed dirt floors, with several net hammocks hanging, children resting, women breastfeeding, with clotheslines, stacks of firewood between each home, dark-skinned chamos playing, dogs & cats roaming, a man scraping a pot clean before putting it on the cook fire.

I glimpse your lives...

Out on the medians of broad boulevards, 1970s cars, SUVs racing rapidly past, your young daughters, young mothers, your abuelitas walk, hands outstretched for a few bolívares, fresh-flowered dresses brightening the grey day, the black pavement, the greyed air, thick feet planted into the rust-blood earth.

...as we speed by

You were driven many years ago from your delta lands dried up by the rerouting of the Orinoco to open shipping channels—Ay, where else could you go, except here, homeport of those mineral companies?

I glimpse...

The wind grows harsher, scurrying garbage around the fenced-off lot next door, a flash of thin white lightning, sharp thunder as dusk arrives, your sons rushing home.

...your lives

& when these daily rains come...

...as we...

& when the night comes...

...speed by


SONG TO THE ORINOCO
    —multi-voice, sung chorus

Ever since I was a child I
have dreamed of mounting you &
sailing far away to the sea
on the slow-flowing waters

Sail away
    Sail away
        Sail away

A muddy snake serpentining
almost fifteen-hundred miles
past high mountains, through dense jungles
& across the llano plains

Sail away
    Sail away
        Sail away

I want to reach down & gather
your many bouldered islands
into a garland ‘round my neck
bronzéd by your humid sun

Sail away
    Sail away
        Sail away

I want to drape myself with your
golden dry-season beaches
& with those verdant-fringed shores
of your many months of rain

Sail away
    Sail away
        Sail away

We’ll watch caimans & piranhas,
the manatees swimming past
jaguars come to the water’s edge
& the birds flying o’erhead

Sail away
    Sail away
        Sail away

Let us float the wide waters past
Caicara, through the narrows
of Angostura, down downstream
to dark River Caroní

Sail away
    Sail away
        Sail away

Then into the many channels
lacing through fertile delta
lands until we reach the calm blue-
silver Caribbean Sea

Sail away
    Sail away
        Sail away

Ever since I was a child I
have dreamed of sailing with you
but the boats have long since ceased &
I will still have to dream of …

Sailing away
    Sailing away
        Sailing away

To Buy the Book:

https://dulcetshop.myshopify.com/products/orinoco-plains-lorraine-caputo

After I Lose the Love of My Life

 Sharon Waller Knutson 

 

   
Shannon, Sharon and Linsi

By Sharon Waller Knutson

The most traumatic event of my life was June 30, 2025, when I found my husband/soulmate/best friend/caregiver dead on the floor. I was devastated because I loved being part of the team of Al and Sharon for thirty years. Now I was totally alone or so I thought until neighbors, most of them strangers, started showing up to help and some are still here. As the first anniversary of his death approaches, I share their stories.

After Paramedics Tell Me My Husband is Gone

Kathleen is the first neighbor to show up.
All six feet of her. Silver pony-tail
swinging like the tails of the mules
she rides past our house before
her husband got dementia,
and they gave up the livestock
and now she walks an old dog
and feeds an aging cat 
on forty acres, three miles from us.

She hugs me, murmurs sorry,
and then heads for the bathroom
to say goodbye to my husband
who lies on the floor like a mannequin.
She sits by my side when the medical
examiner, a tiny doll like woman, arrives
and asks me in the voice of an accuser
why it took me so long to call 911.

“I couldn’t get a dial tone,” I say
“So I kept shaking his arm and telling
him to please wake up. I thought he fainted
like he did three times before.” When
the medical examiner looks skeptical,
Kathleen puts her arm around my shoulder
as if to shield me from being arrested
since my home is swarming with cops.
“Phone service is terrible out here,” she says.

She is still by my side when I say “Goodbye
Sweetheart I love you” and kiss him on the forehead
as he lies on the stretcher like he is sleeping.
 “He looks so handsome, just like when I first met him,”
I say and the medical examiner leaves with my husband.

As does Kathleen, but she is back banging on the window
as I field phone calls from family with her husband
and a bowl of cantaloupe and cottage cheese 
which he spoon feeds me as food and fork
flies from my shaky hand while she fries up
the lamb chops my husband had defrosted for dinner.

I feel faint in the shower the next day. “Panic Attack,”
my son says. I tell him to call Kathleen, who is a nurse.
“You look so pale,” she says as she takes my pulse.
“You might be anemic.” She exchanges nurse’s cap
for angel wings. “There is an Afterlife. I’ve seen it  
when I was seventeen and survived a car accident,”
she says, confirming that I will see my husband again.

She says a prayer for me and then gives me a bed bath
and promises she will be back on her day off
from her job at the hospital and her husband
would check on me every day. After six weeks,
she returns the key and says she is sorry
but at seventy she is too exhausted from working
12-hour shifts at the hospital to help me.

“Hi Luv,” says Sylvia as she sashays into my house
at five foot two. She brings me spinach, tomatoes,
a dozen eggs and fig biscuits she baked with oats.
As she helps me shower and shampoo, 
she tells me her German grandfather built
a brick house when he was her age - eighty.

.

Sylvia

After My Sons Return to their Lives and I am Alone

I answer the doorbell and there stands a seventy-
year-old short stout sumo warrior dead ringer
and I sniff the scent of baked fish and chicken,
vegetables and mashed potatoes. He introduces
himself as Bobby, the owner of the men’s retreat
a few acres away and says he brings free food
his partner, Rick, prepares at the bed and breakfast.

Every Tuesday and Friday afternoon he shows up
with food and advice, “Take it one day at a time”
as he does at the 12 step meetings he runs at the retreat.
Our hands and feet chop the air as we do Tai Chi
to build up my strength and solve balance problems.
He sings songs he wrote himself or covers in a band
and strums the guitar as I clap and compliment.

On some Fridays he brings pictures of his dearly
departed wife and mother and says he still talks
to their photos every day and advises me to speak
to my late husband. “It’s okay for you to be angry
at him if you feel abandoned,” he says.  “Get it all
out.  Scream and cry,” he says.  I sit there numb.
I never cry until Bobby says goodbye
and moves his retreat 100 miles from here.


After I Take too much Benadryl in the Middle of the Night

I am lying on my back 
on the cold, hard tile
in my shorts and top, frigid air
freezing bare skin, scooting
towards my Life Alert button
dangling on the bedpost
and walker desperately to reach
the phone that shrieks nonstop
like a May Day Signal

when I hear a familiar voice calling
“Miss Sharon” and see the blonde
in the ponytail, thinking she stumbled
upon me while delivering free meals
from the café she runs with her husband.
She takes my outstretched hands and lifts
me to my feet and puts me back in bed.

Weeks later as Robbin feeds me roast chicken,
mashed potatoes, broccoli and baby carrots,
she tells me my son had called and asked her
to check on me after I didn’t answer the phone.

Driving the three and a half miles on the dirt road,
she worries what she would do if she finds my dead
body. When she leaves, she says, “See you in a day or so.”
“What if I die?” I ask. “Well, I’ll see you in heaven,” she says
hugging me tight as she does every time she leaves.

I find myself on my back on the floor again.
But I think it’s morning and when a painting falls
on my head, I think I’m back in bed until I see Sylvia
with her short gray hair teetering on wedgie sandals
and a strange man standing over me. They each take
one hand and pull me to my feet and get me back
in bed. “I brought my husband since I can’t lift
more than 70 pounds,” says Sylvia. “It’s nighttime. 
Your son will be here in the morning.”

I pick up the phone in my hospital room.
It is Robbin saying she called every hospital
in the area to find me and she will take me
home. But it is Sylvia in her trusty truck
who pulls up the curb and helps a nurse
get me out of the wheelchair and lift
me into the passenger seat and drive
me forty miles home as my back aches.
It is Sylvia who checks my vitals and gives
me oxygen as she helps my sons nurse
my bruised bones back to health 
so I can walk without pain.

Hank and his wife, Jeannette

After the Holidays, and my Sons Leave Again

“Do you know my name?” asks the six-foot tall 
sixty something muscular man, his mop of white
hair flopping, as he stands holding a carton 
full of bowls of omelets, salads and meals of mashed
potatoes, roast chicken and vegetables. “George,” I say.
 “I’m a chef and I own the café,” he says.
“I know. You’re Robbin’s husband,” I say.

I figure he’s testing to see if I am senile
and I fear I’ve failed when I remember Robbin
calls him Scott. I apologize and he says both names
are correct. He’s George Scott the second. 

Sometimes he delivers food with his wife Robbin,
a beautiful blonde who refuses any money for the food.
Robbin says she wants to help me because she cooked
for her mother and grandmother when they couldn’t
cook for themselves. “God will reward me,” she says.

George and Robbin give me updates on the orange
tabby they rescued from my courtyard and adopted.

“Survivor almost let me pet him today,” Robbin says.

“I roll around on the floor with him twice a day,”
George says. “But he hisses at Robbin.”

One day George says he just found out I was a famous
published writer and wants to be my manager
and sell my books in the café.  As he leaves 
with a handful of books, he says. “If the paparazzi
contact you, send them to me, your manager.”

When it is cold, windy and rainy, George shows up
with a hatchet and his buddy, Hank, a short, slim
sixty something man with gray hair and heart trouble
and they chop wood and light a fire in the wood stove.

When the wind blows over my satellite dish and I lose
internet service, my son messages Hank, who helped
him repair the leaks in the roof. Hank calls me 
and says he is on his way and is bringing George
in case he gets dizzy from the heart medicine.
I am so tired I fall asleep and awaken to George 
waving a bowl under my nose as if it contains smelling salts.

“We’ve been on your roof,” he says. “I brought you a shrimp salad.
Where do you want it?”  As I go to the table to eat, I hear
Hank say, “Try the internet now. I bolted down your satellite dish.”
I tell Hank to take care of his heart and not worry about me.
“I think of you like a mother figure. Like it or not, you’re part
of my family now and I will help you,” Hank says. 

“By the way, the wife is baking you some banana bread
since you loved the last batch. She bought organic bananas
just for you.” The doorbell rings and Hank introduces me
to Jeannette and she visits with me as I eat a slice of her banana
bread and murmur, “Delicious.” I’m addicted and eat another
slice. “That’s why we brought you two loaves.” Hank says 
as he splits wood. “We’ll be back with more banana bread 
when you run out. Just call me.” They lock the door behind them.

Shannon and her niece, Lindsi, bring salad, sour dough bread
and chocolates in the fall. “The last time I called your husband 
from Wal-Mart in the spring, he said he was fine,”
Shannon says. “When I emailed him in the summer, your son
emailed me back that he was gone.” We didn’t know them
when we lived in Idaho, where they still summer. but Shannon
knew us for a decade when she and I hosted church potlucks.
I meet Lindsi for the first time, tell her I went to high school
with her Aunt Sue, who died shortly after my husband died.
Lindsey recognizes my husband from the photos on the wall.
“He used to come into my father’s Ace Hardware store in Idaho.”


In the Month of March: My First Birthday Without My Beloved

Hank builds a fire and turns up the space heaters 
when I shiver as Sylvia suds my body and hair 
in the shower. The phone goes dead as it rains
slow and steady. I hear my son’s voice 
from a thousand miles away talking 
through the Ring camera speaker in my kitchen
telling me he has scheduled a repair but when
the rain stops, the phone rings and I hear Hank 
and Sylvia’s voice on the line loud and clear.

Outside temperatures climb from 50 to 95
as the refrigerator door warns in red letters 
to change the air and water filter.
I stand at the sink shaking as Sylvia simmers
salmon in a skillet and George shows up
with salads and entrees and holds me 
in his strong arms. “You’re okay,” he says.

Fire ants march in the kitchen like soldiers
and I drown the army in the sink. The skin
on my arm stings and itches and I see a burn mark
left by an ant that escaped the massacre
and soothe it with gel from the aloe vera plant
growing in the courtyard. When Sylvia
shows up, she pours cinnamon on the heads
of ants and traps them in the plastic garbage sack.

Shannon and Lindsi are back with salad fixings
and sour dough bread. Shannon washes dishes
while Lindsi empties the garbage cans.
They say they will return in April with food
and friendship and do household chores.

One of Robbin’s meals goes rancid and I dump
the chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli
in the front yard for the birds. Hank delivers
new meals for Robbin and George and after
he leaves I find a box of new filters on my doorstep.

George shows up with food and his friend Donnie 
and shows him the house and furniture my husband
built with clay and cactus and says he will bring smoked
salmon, salads and sour dough bread for my birthday dinner.
Donnie buys my poetry book dedicated to my husband
and says his 80-year-old widowed mother would love
to see the house and meet me. I tell him to come anytime.

A voice on the computer shouts “Severe heat
Warning” as the thermometer soars to 105 degrees
two days in a row and 84 degrees when I wake up
at sunrise on my birthday to the shrill voices of quail.
For supper, I dine on smoked salmon, spinach salad
and sour dough bread at the table my soulmate built
with saguaro cactus and imagine him sitting on the chair
across from me smiling and singing Happy Birthday, 
glowing as bright as 84 candles and a full moon.