My legs are shaking as I step
Onto a frozen lake
In skates that are not my own.

He grabs my hands
and whirls me in a wide circle
I scream and beg for him to stop.

He leaves me for a while
to wobble slowly
on my own.

Then he returns with a shopping cart
And dumps me in it
To push me across the lake

At an alarming rate.

With tears in my eyes
I beg him to stop.

I know I am being jettisoned
Towards my death.

I wake up to let the dog out
And am greeted by your collective clutter--this family!--
***** cups and plates, cushions on the floor, old socks tucked into the couch, cracked pistachio shells intermingling with dried berry blood, ear plugs!

I wade into the bog of filth to begin my daily duties. I can hear your voice say, "No one ever helps me around here!"

Truly I am a modern Cinderella--I think-- beaten and worn down by those who don't appreciate me. So Christlike!

It smacks me in the face.
The realization that Christ was crucified last night  and is dead and buried and won't rise until tomorrow,
And the disciples have no idea that he will indeed rise!

I am no Cinderella.
I am a murderer going about her business without any remorse for her crime.

What a grim day Saturday can be.

I’ve always been afraid of them:
Stairs.
They have a tendency
To give way beneath me
And pitch me forward
Towards the floor
In the back of my mind at least,
They do this.
It is rare that
this moment
actually occurs
but the occasional occurrence
keeps the fear in the back of my mind
and in my dreams
I’m fall
ing,
fa
ll
ing,
fallen.

You are a gerund.
I am a verb.
Talking behind their backs
Will not solve our problems.
I opened the door and spoke.
I asked them to be quiet.
Standing behind me,
Like the mouse you are,
You pretended to want action.
I am action.

You are a gerund.
I am a verb.
Action leaps out of me
Like a plastic snake
On a loaded spring.
You were talking about a solution.
I wrote, I spoke,
I developed a plan.
Thinking about action,
Wishing and praying
For a conclusion was all
You came close to.
But stories are not written
Through inaction.
One well placed verb
Conquers a dozen nouns
And completes the sentence,

This Sunday
During the music
I saw a spider.

It crawled down the center aisle.

I thought to myself:
God made this spider
And it is going to give
Its soul
To Him
At the altar—

A silly thought.

This spider knows the LORD.
It was never separated from Him
As I have been.

A mask looms over me and covers my face.
"Count backwards from 100."
My mouth feels like cotton--
My tongue weighs a ton.
I am falling backwards into an orange fuzz.
Pink and yellow squiggles bounce around me.
A blue one whispers to me,
"Give her more. She's waking up."

When I finally open my eyes,
I ask for it.
I see it in my mind's eye:
Brown, fuzzy
But I want to see the other side--
I imagine that it looks like the back of an eyelid.

I want to hold it and pet it and love it forever-- warm velvet and slime all in one piece of skin--
A most precious part of me that they have removed

It was unsightly
It might have caused cancer
I will never get it back

When I miss it, I touch my scar and am thankful for it.

They can't take me away completely.
Something still remains.

"What dew drops is, Miss W?"

Where do I start?
What dew drops is?
Should I address the syntactic structure of that question?
Should I even bother to correct the grammar here? Will it matter?
Or will this student roll their eyes because they've heard it all before?
They know how to speak properly. They simply choose not to.
Or that, at least, is the opinion of many of my contemporaries.
I don't know how I feel. I can't form an opinion about anything.
I'm too young.
Not much older than the 18-year-old squeezing into that tiny desk asking
What dew drops is?

Should I go into a scientific explanation about
how the heating and the cooling of the earth,
each rising and setting of the sun,
affects condensation?
I'm not even exactly sure how it works.
I apparently know more than this kid.
What dew drops is?

Have they ever been outside?
Have they been up early in the morning or late into the night?
Of course they have. This is high school.
There is no sleep.
When I was in high school, I woke up before dawn and worked late into the night.
I knew what dew was because it dampened my pant legs
as I walked to my car in the morning and at night.

What dew drops is?
Is this a real question?
Is this really what one addresses in a 12th grade English class?
Shouldn't I be sharing the true meaning of literature?
Or some life-altering insight into a canonical work?

No. I teach English at a high school.
And that means I answer questions like
"What dew drops is?"

And I love it.

An awkward angled and elbowed crane
Bowed and tipped his hat to me--
Asked for my number and a date.

I turned my foxy nose up.
My eyebrows arched,
And my friends laughed.

Derision seeped through his lowly form.

Years later, I am shopping after
A hard day of work--
Sweaty, *****, ordinary.
I am buying tampons.

I run into him at the store
Through a mutual friend.
I do not recognize him.

He seems taller--maybe he has learned
Confidence.
His face is tan--acne gone.
He is handsome--muscular.
His clothes fit him well.

No awkward bowing or stooping,
But something in his eyes when
Our friend asks if we've met before,
And I say, "No."

After I walk away, it dawns on me
Like an egg's yolk cracking over my head
And dripping--oozing--down.

And I hope he recognized me too.

I hear a soft woof.
Bleary eyes peer at the clock:
3:03 a.m.
But time is of no matter
to a watchdog.
He stands stiff
ears perked
starting at the window.

The noise he makes
remind me of the Cowardly Lion:

Rrrrhuff
Softly
RrrrrrrrHUFF

He warns an imaginary intruder
or perhaps a neighbor
that he won't stand for their
feet near our sidewalk.

And although the danger isn't real
I'm grateful and proud.
Tell him he's a good boy,
but to get back in bed.

I was robbed once.
That's why I got him.

The Christmas party was going well.
Everyone was smiling and laughing.
We were playing ***** Santa.
All was normal until his turn.
He walked up to the tree and,
Instead of picking a gift,
He froze.
As if this decision would be his last,
As if his life hung in the balance.
We all waited with our breath held--
On the edge of our seats--
Nothing happened.
The pastor tried to smooth things over
Move him along, go on with the game.
We all played along,
As if he weren't still standing there,
Staring at the tree.
I clocked his time:
Thirty seven minutes and forty three seconds.

He lifted his head,
Looked around,
Sat down,
As if nothing ever happened at all.

Reading a book in the sun
can get you so absorbed in
what you're reading
that when you look up

it's as if everything around you
were new.

You're staring at yourself
For the first time wondering:

Is that really me?

Is this my life?

Surely not.
I belong in this book.

I suppose that's what
happened
to Don Quixote.

Joy overwhelming met
with peace.
So many plans and prayers
were for your sake.
You were given resurrection life
and the chance to save millions of hearts,
but if all you did was change this <b>one</b>
you were worth it
and forever loved.

Heaven has never been clearer
or more sweet.

Hope in things Eternal
A Promise in your Life

Shock and Sorrow at your Loss

Joy in knowing Jesus
has conquered Death and the Grave
and nothing can take away
my Hope.

We planned our attack,
Chose our weapons carefully,
and strategized.

We would draw the enemy out
And corner him.
If he advanced,
We would immediately become
More aggressive.

ATTACK!

He began a retreat,
But we were ruthless.

Blood curdling war cries--
Animals in distress--

Die! Die! Die!

That spider didn't stand a chance.

Warm scents of pancakes draw him to the kitchen,
But he's too aloof to accept crumbs from me.

Instead he brushes past my leg several times,
Then settles down to the window--

Ostensibly to birdwatch,
But I know what he really wants is to be seen,
To be admired.

"You can't touch me," he says with every purr.

You have to be mature to love a cat.

Anticipation
Met with death before your time
Waiting for heaven

Strangers stare
As I slip into
The cool water of
An above-ground pool
That has been set into a deck.

Rebecca and Carl
Have already
Cannonballed in
But that’s not

My style.

I step into the water

Slowly

Using the ladder
Gripping the handles
With a force that pleads
For them to
Save me
From this experience.

I am on exhibition.

I killed a fly
For no other reason
Than that it was bothering me

But that is what flies do

Did it deserve death?

Now it's body is
Lying on the floor
Next to my feet

I am a murderer.

I tried to scoop up his lifeless body --
To resurrect it--
To breath into it
The breath of Life

But I am not God.
I don't give life.
I take it.

Time slowly ticks,
and I stand still.

I am waiting.

As a noiseless patient spider,
I seem detached,
but there is much to observe.

And then again nothing to see here
move along

But I cannot.

I am frozen in space and time
fully grokking what's happening to me
yet unable to stop any of it,

And so I wait.

She softly whines to let you know
just how patient she's been.

She sees you reaching for your shoes, and you must know
you're not going anywhere without her.

There is no escape.

You may give in--
frolics and scampers of ecstacy--
and be covered with kisses and kisses
until you come to know
what bliss is.

I watched the sun drop over the hill--
like an egg cracked--
a yoke of understanding washed over me:

This list of do's and don'ts
This need to obtain perfection
is an unattainable standard

Why strive?

I watched you watch your vanilla sky,
and I let you go

You with your affable smile and easy laugh
You with your  eyes so genuine and your feet deeply rooted
You with the unnecessary apologies

You do not belong to me, and you never will
Just like this now pink, now orange, now purple sunset
that sinks down like a promise

Not to give me what I want
but to provide me with a new day tomorrow
to live again and reach again for perfection

This idea is not my own:
Clouds like scars mar this sherbet sky and remind us that even this broken creation is beautiful.

They see much yearning within
Retreat:

A fresh start.

Love is a Labrador
waiting eagerly at the door
for your arrival
to bay with joy unchecked
at your entrance--
slobbering passionate kisses
all over your hands, face, neck, arms,
                        knees, toes--
And you embrace love--
call it by name and praise it.

Love is a walk around the block
with fresh enthusiasm for the
same old weeds.

It enjoys the simple pleasures.