A Wrigley Recipe, NOT in Verse

For the cake:
1 C. flour
1 C. milk
1/2 C. (?!?!?) sugar
2 eggs
Lemon icing
Jelly bellies.

Put in oven at 350 degrees. Check after one medium length picture book. Check again after lunch. Ice liberally. Decorate with jelly belly landscape (one flower, one pond, two very small apple trees, sky with clouds, and sun). Serve to one dubious father, who will probably ask for seconds.

It's a little dense, but better than you might imagine. I would not, however, recommend you try it yourselves. It's best when served by a six year old.

Roof Rack Symphony

When the salesdude said
the cheaper rack might whistle,
he did not say we would
be followed by songbirds
everywhere we went.

And when he said
the rack might whistle,
he did not tell us we would
be followed by the gleeful
howls of ghosts from
highway to home.

And when he said
the rack might whistle,
we did not stop to think
about the song of hope
we carry in a roof rack
filled with camping gear.

dear diary

if i kept a diary,
i’d invent
a new lie
every day.

i’d write
about snowflakes
when i meant
to describe
cherry blossoms,
or cherry blossoms
when i’d really
seen the wings
of moths take flight,
your heart in tow.

i’d write
about the scratch
of metal on metal
instead of the
hummingbird’s buzz,
or i’d talk about
a hummingbird
when i meant
to talk about love.

if i kept a diary,
i’d invent
a new lie
every day,

because not
even a diary
wants to hear
the true story
of a spring morning
trying to pretend
it’s summer.

On the House Across the Street

I noticed a patch of
blue lattice today,
three coats of paint ago,
that someone somehow skipped
when blue became white
and then again when
white turned black.

I have been brushed
with a shade of
sentimentality all day,
wondering about
neighbors long gone,
colors long faded,
and little details
I may have missed,
left open like wounds
for strangers to see.

to not be 97

should the fates desire
to spin me six more decades,
is it a sin to say no thanks?

should peter bar the gates
for another sixty years,
what is the price of
sneaking in the back door?

do not mistake me:
i neither hunger for
an early shroud,
nor seek to
shuffle off this
clumsy coil,

but
i lack the patience
lack the strength,
lack the will

to be frail.

i know the
seven deadlies,
i have studied,
i have learned,
but i do not know
what crime it is
to be too weak
to be weak.

so should the fates desire
to spin me six more decades,
is it a sin to say no thanks?

a good night poem

i have become increasingly
distracted by the way
your hair colors the lamplight golden,
your eyes drink dickens like nectar,
and your sighs sing the stars to sleep.

A Poem for Romy, Somewhere in the Sky

I wish you wings
made of piano notes,
soaring chords
to keep you afloat,
and clouds made
of major keys.

I wish you bird’s eyes –
keen, keening,
quick, quickening –
seeking out the
laughter rolling
in the landscapes’s hills.

I wish you soft landings
on sharp talons,
a fierce perch
on a strong branch,
a feathered nest
in fine weather.

the best ways to waste time

always involve something to chew on –
a pen cap, a thumbnail, a stray plastic toy.
they call it ruminating.

and the best ways to waste time
take no effort, no planning.
we stumble into them gracefully,
accidentally, like tripping over
river rock and landing in a nap.

weather, naturally, is never a factor.
i can dither and dawdle on an
icy december morning as easily
as an august afternoon laced with sun.
what really matters is the way
the pen slips into my fingers.

company, too, is surprisingly secondary.
yes, nothing fills an hour like
a good friend and idle chatter,
but let’s sing amen for an hour unfilled.

because the best ways to waste time
require nothing more than a deadline,
something urgent, a tight voice warning
i told you so.

after all, how you’ll never know that
water is sweet until the rivers run dry.