synthetic petals

sometimes you buy dollar-store flowers and stick them in a vase and pretend they’re real. a big vase, and every time you look at the table you smile at the color on those synthetic petals and think about the soil that lies like a grave beneath the snow, and you...

springtime on the farm

it isn’t spring but everything in the call of bird and undone jacket tells me it is.the snow is ice for the melting, sliding son into fields of cows and fence and he squeals when he sees the animals and throws straw like confetti and steps across the one that...

imperfect prose on thursdays: seeking light

sometimes it’s all we have.that slide of the cloth curtain, that peek into the horizon and the sigh for the gold, blue and violet. and then, the miracle of caedmon red splashing righteous andwe sing for the light holds us through the dark of any day. i am a...

the greatest love affair

everything in me tells me she’s a girl.she has brown hair, this daughter of mine. brown hair and her father’s eyes and she skips stones like amelie and helps blind men see. i felt her swim across the front of me last night as i lay in bed early for the day...

a nice face

i’m a wreck with a nice face.i smile and disappointment is eased by pretty.church started at 11 and the toilet was plugged and the dishwasher was broken and i stood in my red pjs staring at the clock not able to move but i smiled, and the clock seemed to...