sitting like a stone
in your stomach. Like a branch
a dunnock perches on. The drone
of a deadbeat song. The lull of

a rainy afternoon when you
open the door, your skin wrinkled
like a prune. Your wet hair matted
to your face like grey cardigan wool

that pills. But you cannot shave off. So,
you toss it in your bedroom drawer,
along with the cards and pictures of him.
Cheers to the years you were green

and slim. This pain was an ice pick
chipping at you, the man’s tool! Now
it’s a rusty piece of metal that lost shine.
Cannot cut an orange rind. But it’s keeping time.

are white chocolate kisses
melting on crimson lips
rolling off and doing
a flip into her wine

Her teardrops
are smoky
like sitting at a bar
surrounded by cigars
doing pirouettes and
jumping cigarettes

Her teardrops
are frozen
jagged icicles
hanging off the eaves
like long sleeves
on my baby brother

Her teardrops
are milky
like ricotta cheese
in clumps
a mountain high
piled on a pizza pie

with her painted gaze
of striped marmalade
sips champagne. Tulips with
their swollen heads bite red

licorice skies into shreds. Lilies
trumpet their repose on a thorny
crusted crimson rose. A dancing
breeze blows by, taking whiffs

of momma's apple pie. It’ sitting
on the windowsill catching morning's
autumn chill. A painting of the
afternoon is strewn with golden

leaves and bushy tails of grey. They
ricochet from tree to tree playing
a game of hide and seek. The buzzing
honeybee is flirting with

my drink. And in a wink the scene
has turned to wood burned fires
and cold powdery nights. Just right
for a glass of wine and candlelight.

I was minus twenty-one,
young in the head. You stood
*****, not bent. Chestnuts
roasting below your brow. My *******

milky as a momma cow. Tulips
danced on your driveway. Marigolds
curtsied in marmalade. It’s years since
we cut the ribbon. What a feast

that Thanksgiving! You poured
gravy all over my lumps. I stood
bent in high-heeled pumps over
your knees. I was carrots and you

the peas. Yesterday was
years ago.  I lost it along with
my keys. It fell asleep in a deep-
freeze. I thaw it out in the middle

of night with a lemon wedge
in my ***** and sprite. Drinking
bubbles down, wearing pancake
make-up. I’m a clown.

to the big house, with gables
and the long tar driveway
with fray chestnut shingles
when I'd mingle with them,

when the door was ajar,
and I drove a cranberry red
four sedan car. I cannot rewind
the clock to afternoons filled

with laughs and talk, ***** jokes
and schemes. Dreams broke off
like branches taken by the
wind. This old body is wrinkled

and thinned. Some turned
to dust. Some like fallen leaves
turned rust. I, myself drink those
summers like a bottle of wine

when the sky was cornflower. We
had time to make all those plans,
that fell through like sand on a sieve,
the ones we cannot, no never relive.

chocolate, melting in
the boy's hand, smudging
my colors all over his face,
with a little red ribbon pasted

in place.  A bunny, hollow
inside. I split open as he bit
into my side. He peeled off
pieces of me, and they fell off

like bark shedding from
a tree. I was not filled,
like the solid bunnies, that
had firmer and rounded

tummies. I had edges poking
out. My sweet lips curled into
a pout. But my foil was fourteen carat
gold shiny. I was cute for one so tiny.

She's Red

as a painted evening
sky. Red as the algae
dyed tide. She was pink
on the day she was born. Pink

frilly dresses and ribbons
she'd worn.  But then her blood
curdled like sour milk that's left
in the refrigerator, sitting for

weeks. Her rivulet eyes
and puffy apple cheeks. Her little
hands clenched like clams
on the beach. Her curls stuck

to her nape wet from her
sweat, ******* her thumb like
a leech. But it wasn't a breast
filled with sweet cream. She didn't

digest between all the
night screams. As she grew
she saw red on her white
cotton sheets!! And she'd go to

the store to buy red for her lips
and her cheeks. Red's what she wore
the day daddy left her there sobbing
at the front door.