There are  fingerprints burned
into these kilns, leather hands

held  waists of women
with wide hips, who gave

birth to gaunt-faced children;
now, the bricks lay across

America’s streets,
forgotten.

Sixty years she awoke
fetched cups and cream,

sounds of gentle awakenings,
like sparrows hopping across

window sills; oh,  so, still
and quiet the home became.

In every American state
county and town

women walk barefoot
on broken glass

looking for an
open door.

The champion boxer
turned alcoholic

wandered the town's
railroad tracks until death.

After the funeral
his wife spent

her days thumbling
through newspaper

newspaper clippings
awaiting his resurrection.

return.

She walked the school’s halls
thirteen years, few students

talked to her because she drooled,
walked like a puppet, and had

greasy hair; there are  poems
I can not finish.

She runs from the garden with a tomato worm in her palm
leaving behind a doll, chocolate milk, and banana.

Behind her and thousands of feet above, a green-black
anvil cloud muscles in  from the southwest, close to home;

far from her mind.

Near blind
no longer able

to follow the path
under the bridge

to stream’s edge where
White-tailed deer bow

and drink
pink tongues flick,

eyes
wide.