THE DAY THE RAIN STOPPED

Saturday’s pavement was hot enough to fry an egg, so we did for fun, and the few pebbles that stuck to the yolky white weren’t that bad, like uncooked split peas or unground peppercorns, not spicy just hard as a pellet from Jim’s BB gun when he’d hunt apples or, if he really wanted to sharpen his aim, acorns, (not yet old enough for squirrels).

Jim lived in the farmhouse across the hayfield, a few birch between his front porch and my bedroom window. His ma kept a watchful eye out for crows in the corn, mine kept a watchful eye out for Jim, not slim Jim but broad shouldered, big grinned, handsomest fella in the county, Jim.

Aside from his daily target practice, which was like clockwork from three till four, Jim liked to try his hand at kissing but it wasn’t me he practiced on, maybe because Ma kept him at bay because I was younger and that made me innocent in his eyes.

Boys Jim’s age wanted to find girls innocent enough to try new tricks on, but not so innocent they wouldn’t know about the tricks they were trying, is what Marybeth explained when I pretended to pee and overheard the older girls gossip in the washroom one afternoon.

But I liked to think it was because I was pretty. Ma said I was pretty. Pa didn’t say much in the way of compliments, wasn’t around even if he could, so I took Ma’s word for it. That’s why Jim kissed me that afternoon school let out and lazy summer began, kissed me long and hard and the sun shone for forty-five days straight.

POLARIS

I should have been a wood nymph

born in the thicket of drifted mangrove.

Never mind mites,

I’d bathe in the tropical scent of daydreams,

linger in liquid light

dip in - dip out;

imaginings.

Once, I wore a bonnet of stars

and when morning broke, I fell quiet,

plucked silver dander from my crown so Polaris

would catch a glimpse

OR

If the sky were to shift grey again

in this half-broke morning

cold coffee,

sideways glances.

I should breathe,

relieved

to hover longer in my skin, the one

I’m comfortable in.

Blather blaring from the hum

of my mind’s machinery

fills the in and out—words to paper to

blank screen.

Or,

I might see where this grey carries me

THE WOLF AND I

I wonder 

what makes the clouds dip low at dusk,

suspended over the burnt earth of summer? 

I spy you, 

movement along the fence line. 

Other earthly, 

crouch low in dimness, 

feign ambiguity, 

hasten to show yourself yet you 

visit nightly.

Shadow wolf,

  sing your aria;   La Luna. 

A WOMAN AND HER DOG

He was black.

She had snow hair. 

Winter sent black dog in search of warmth. 

Woman wound the two inward,

together, their tarnished pasts.

But spring! Had they not broken

ice and snow, cheek by jowl, 

melted into meadow green,

imbibed with coniferous? 

Run with me now, Woman said,

as they descended from steep to sloped 

loping in tempo, forest to field,

white hair blown back, black coat coursing.