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    Pleasant Valley Sunday She’s a breeze beyond my white fence pastel-colored kite tailing behind, a blur of pinks & peaches & as she & her mom pass: we wave like neighbors who don’t know each other’s names. This little girl is six, maybe seven,...

      The Anniversary Every February I remember. I have it marked in my diary and sometimes I take annual leave but that’s not to say I don’t remember at other times - like when a song comes on or I’m buying magazines in the Co op and I’m back in that...

      The single woman’s toolbox It began with a claw hammer, for removing lingering doubt and to bludgeon home the point that Yes, I know my own mind and No is my final answer. I don’t need to ask a friend. The pliers came soon after, along with the...

    When the Saints Came We waited for them to heal us. Took them gifts of honey, a rabbit-skin bag. Showed them how to till and plant crops with foresight. How to sweeten bitter leaves by boiling. We helped them quarry rock, carve the blocks, stack them fit...

      A Chapel in the Woods There is a chapel in the woods. We should have been married there. The vines and the growth overcoming the building Except for the doors that would open to welcome us. There is a cabin in the woods. We should have lived there...

      'Once Upon a May Day Morning, a Father Takes His Three Daughters on a Greenline Bus Deep Into the Green Rolling Countryside of Kent.' He packs a picnic, hard boiled eggs with the shell still on to protect them, tomatoes, crisps, ham sandwiches....

      Basic Anthropology You liked to break trees, one dry branch at a time, and test your full weight against the centuries inside. When the tree was gone, you longed for witnesses to understand your regret. You liked to burn books in a random sequence...

      Eight hundred and four full moons I do not – cannot – quite recall How many full moons I actually have or haven’t seen, How many I have missed, So intent on the business of this world, Its instants and circumstances. Put it like this: I only...

      Lord, grant me… On hot days, the back door stands open to the garden, to sudden wing flurries, sparrow chit-chat. By evening there are bluebottles upstairs, stupidly circling, banging themselves against the place the light comes from. I have been...

      The Fair Leaves Town The hum of early traffic resonates where skeletal rides seek egress on lorries bound for the next town, and the road opens like a wound, becomes a thoroughfare again. We view the marketplace as we would a post-festive room,...

      Mace in Her Pocket She is used to walking unafraid of the echo off her heeled steps, moving through the parking lot in a still-dark, early morning hour. Mace in her pocket, fur coat on her back, fist wrapped around her keys, she takes a breath...

      I had a dream I had a dream.  I dreamt it’s time to go. It’s time to leave. It’s time to stop this game. My boss appeared, the one from years ago. Her face was pink and thick with orange paint. “Still here? They don’t pay you any more”, she said. ...

      How To Bury Someone Else’s Da Make sure to pick the proper season. July is saturated, so is November. Spring is the perpetual king of felt-tip leaks and drownings, too full already. Remember how the whiteness of Winter is able to cool heart muscle...