reddish-brown, dancing
around my dead nest that's
bombed, poisoned and fallen
to the ground. Still buzzing

where it hung. Stinging
men that stand near it. Strands
of it dangling down like colored
party streamers, swinging in

the air. My tummy balloons like
I ate a hearty meal. But I'm starving
as I spiel these lines. Smelling
of its death prickles me like

long needle pines. Rebuilding
on the splinters, on the shards of
what's been left. Not a pearl to
string. The brokenness has heft.

a tiny roll,
a planted seed of
an embryo. A fallen
dewdrop

on a green blade.
A hidden gumdrop
melting in the shade.
Just a whisper

dancing in the
wind. A glossy pearl
that is silver tinged.
A hiccup on a ride

wave. Jasmine star paved
on an angel's wing. A bead
of mist skipping bridges in
G-string. A splash of perfume

nesting inside a wrist. Curly
lemon twist hanging over
a V-shaped glass. Running
wax on the sides of  

a candle. A weathered sole
on a leather sandal. The piercing
silent movie scream. A tickle under
the armpit steam. A hatching nit in

wavy hair. A bit of her here
and there. A sniffle in the frosty
air. A breath cloud hung
in the circus sky. Elephants

marching, trumpeting
lullabies to the beat of old
father time, in the streets of
an uphill climb.

sings a song gliding across
like an albatross on crystal
blue lakes of shimmering
diamonds swimming to

her island of blue. Fanning her
snow white feathers treasures
the orange moon. Bobbing her head
to the flock she takes off

like a rocket firing into a cornflower
sky, high as a magpie over the
mountain. Counting the winking stars
she spars with a noctilucent cloud

that stands like corn in the
meadow. An old man is playing banjo
on his back porch. She flies low
to the ground trumpeting hot like

a blowtorch to   "******* creek". A couple
dances cheek to cheek. Crickets
chirp to the string brass, all to the sound
of bluegrass.

weeping purple leaves
bowing her curly tight head
swinging lithe limbs
singing in shadows old

time hymns. Redbud
lavender pea flowers
they call ruby falls. Amusing
the hours surfing on  

a begotten breeze. Skimming
the water looking for ducks,
frogs and geese. Some say she's
lonely. Some say she's blue. Grey

clouds befall her all standing in
queues. She mingles with dewdrops
and jingles in rhyme. Spending her time
flirting with sunbeams, tracking

herons looking to dine. The bellow of
bullfrogs paint a crimson smile,
while spilled perfume of lilacs dancing
in showers has her laughing for hours.

like my breath
when I dismount my guy
after ***. I count the beats
of my pulse as I lie and

convulse.  After ******,
it drops down like a
barometer in stormy
weather. Like a dog on her

tether on a hot sunny
day pacing back and
forth in a tight space with
no shade.  I've nowhere

to go. I'm flat out and
laid.  A stiff drink with cheese
stuffed olives makes me rise,
getting out of bed to wipe my eyes.

as the sun up in the sky. It goes on
without you spinning circles, feigning
shy. It tugs upon your apron,
frivolously liking to play. When did

you get older? Wishing for
your younger days? Every bead
of sweat befalls you like
a sticky lollipop. The clouds

are cotton candy and it's
raining lemon drops. Are your
dreams that elusive? Flittering
like a butterfly? Sliding down

a rainbow; landing in caramel apple
pie! Oh, that rascal moon! It's a chunk
of cheese. Are you feeling a bit mousy?
Take a bite of it; do please.

with wonder,
even as you slumber
still as night.
For I would take you

under if your colors
bled to palest white. If you
were to burn me
with the scalding of
your tongue I would still

taste honey despite that I've
been stung. If you rained
shards of icy hail I would not
run for cover, nor be

windswept by the gale. For me
there is other. It puts me in
a bind. Because as you leave
part of me is left behind.

her swollen blisters
walking miles where no man goes.
She talks in whispers
trudging with bunions on her toes.

You don't touch her as she quivers
from the night's she's slept alone.
She is moon, sun and rivers.
You're a pebble, a skipping stone!

You cannot smell a rose's sweetness.
You're too busy pulling thorns.
You don't have completeness.
You're a ram, encrusted with a head of horns.

You cannot taste a drop of honey.
Bitterness sits on your tongue.
You cannot feed off all your money.
The only thing to which you clung.

what she knows. But
she doesn't know
me. She knows all
she's read and heard, things

that I've done, places
I've gone.  She's drawn her
conclusions on those
alone. She hasn't picked up

the phone to talk. She sees
what she sees. But she doesn't
see me. She sees pictures
on screens. So, she knows

how I look. But she hasn't
looked in my eyes. She hasn't
seen me cry. She hasn't held
my hand. She doesn't know my plans.

is a bank account. What you
put in is what you get out. Every
sweet word is a deposit. Kindness
paves the way to profit. Withdrawals

are made from criticism. When
you disrespect you are depleting
your share. And in time you will
find that there's nothing

there. Relationships are
an investment. It's time to make
an assessment. If you take and take
you'll drain the well. Don't raise your

voice. Don't pout and yell. Memories
are receipts. Not everything comes
with a return. What you put in is
what you will earn.

brings us together
Time
draws us apart
Time
makes the rose bud grow
Time
destroys them in the snow
Time
is a thief stealing our days
Time
is a sneak that hides in the shade
Time
is endless to the young
Time
to the old is a fling that has flung
Time
one can never get back
Time
shows all the wear and the cracks
Time
Is a teacher to the wise
Time
is frittered away by a fool and his lies

since she flew down
south. I haven't heard anything
from her that was word
of mouth. I look at her pictures,

still frames of her youth. I dabble
in the reverie afternoons drinking
vermouth. She'd flitter and flutter
flower to flower, flapping wings

in an early evening shower. When
the grass wore its coat of gleaming
white was the day she took her first
flight. I thought she'd be back

to hear the bluebird sing and
see the cherry trees blooming
in the spring. But as the days melted
into years, it didn't wash away a single

drop of my tears. So, memories I'll
frame. Hanging them on my walls,
they all look the same. I cannot hear
her chirping over my morning cup of

coffee, or see her nest flossy
in the trees. Like the autumn leaves
she blew away. And after she left
the cornflower skies turned a silver grey.

because she carries
the weight of the world
on her little shoulder. As she
grew older it only doubled. So,

she built herself a bubble
and lives inside of it. It's
round and the walls are
made of chocolate. No floor

or ceiling is there. No couch
or armchair. She's suspended
in the air. Here she dabbles
and she doodles. She eats

buttered noodles. She drinks
pansies and peppermint. And flings
her lines to print. She never did
marry. No one wanted Carrie.

blowing on their tufted
tops, floating in the air
like parachutes. Planting
their seeds to fruit. There's no

limit how far they travel. All
these mysteries in time
unravel. Cottonwood
fluff riding the

wind. Their fine down hairs
coating plants and spider
webs. Like a blanket of snow
they spread throughout

the river park in a glow of
white after dark. It only takes
one gritty seed to make it
to a tree.

like a fitted cotton sheet
tucked inside the hall closet,
stacked neat on the
bottom with the pillow

cases. She spread out
like a butterfly emerging
from her chrysalis and flew
off into the distance. I watched

her airborne. And I stood forlorn
at how she unfolded. I liked her
tight and molded when I had her
in my hand. But she had her

plans. I was rooted to
my yard like the big oak tree,
stripped of leaves in winter,
with bark splintered. She

unfolded like a picnic blanket on
a sunny day. People gathered
to eat and drink and celebrate. And I
was not invited. I sat nil and slighted.

skate on a crystal thinning
silver lakes. Swinging down
on rose vines they throw out
rhymes in a parade

to be seen. Pasting it
like paper dolls in these rooms
that have not walls, some call
a magazine. Till the weeks

scream not in words
but freshly painted silences
dropping down in bombs
of red. There fly pieces

of a dream. It's raining shards
of thank you nots. And like tots
wobble to the next room for
a shot with bruises on their egos

and knees. Waiting to please
men coloring with pen in the lines. Dotting
their eyes with white cotton, they'll not
be sought in this edition.

is a smile
was an upside down
frown. His eyes blue as
the ocean. But inside them

I drown. Drawn like a bee
to his lavender colors
and gold. But as I grew close,
like the night he turned

cold. He stung me after
feeding me honey. We met
on a day it was breezy and
sunny. But grey clouds

trumpeted like elephants
in the bush. What I thought
was kinship turned
into an ambush.

and polished it with
lace. I placed it on my mantel,
above the hearth, next to
the candles. It sat there

looking at me. So, I asked it
for a cup of tea. We laughed and
we wept. I slept if off that night
high as the luminescent

streetlight. But it swelled up
like a bee sting the next morning. I iced it
with a drink I fixed in my kitchen
sink of ***** and olive brine. Then I

penned this line by line, staring
at the cracks I spackled with juniper
and rose hips from the garden. This time,
hardened in a tortoise shell next to the candles.

again. I'll pack it away
like a birthday present. Stuff
it in my drawers, with my bras
and socks. It's like a cookie

crumbling. I lick off all
the frosting. What's left falls on
the floor, to be swept up when I do
the evening chores. It's a locomotive

train leaving the station in the
morning. If I sleep in, I'll miss
it. I must run or it will fly like an eagle
mountain high. But in the running,

I must stop and sniff my garden
blooming or catch a breeze skating
a figure eight on my skin. My face,
a tease of sunlight percolating.

a beam of a golden
stream flickering in the old
winged back chair, the one
with pills from the cat and all

his black hair. The cornflower
blue has faded to grey. But
through my window I see
how sunlight plays. It's the only

life this wooden four legged
seat has had. It sits in the corner
like an impish lad. It moved to this
house after my parents died, along

with the couch and dishes
piled high. But today a dancing
yellow strand ran across its back
when the window was opened a crack.

what the man looks like
now. Does he have a high
forehead and bushy
eyebrows? Is his grey hair

sticking out of his ears? Can he
hear me loud and clear? Suddenly, he
disappeared. Does he have a beer
belly? Do his pants hang low? Has his

gait turned somewhat slow? Does he
still smile like a cheshire cat? Do
all his jokes still fall flat? Has he
retired? Did he move away? Does he

have someone to hold at night? Is he
OK?? Time doesn't stand still. It moves
on like a freight train, leaving puffs of
billowing smoke and looking glass pane.

and they drop out. I count
them every day. Some
leave. Some stay. It's a number's
game. I don't know their

names. I don't know who
they are. Like ashes from a
cigar they tap and flick the brown
rolled stick till I fall inside the

tray. I lie like pieces of
clay in the smoked green glass
in a heaping mass. They water me
with hypocrisy. Upon their cheshire grin

they sputter sarcasm. Spinning webs
of silky lines I'm a fly caught in
my rhymes. Drinking ***** and lime
till I drown the moon in my spilled perfume.

is the spot I crawl into
to get away from the noise
and the fray. Cats cannot
follow me in. They sit outside

chagrin. It's my little nook
where I read my book, as I sip
my cherry wine penning every
line. The only noise I hear is the

whirring of the fan. I'm a velvet
mole burrowing in my hole. It's where
the lilacs bloom, in the floorboards of
my room. The ceiling grows as I

doze in my rocking chair. Cats
peep at me through the hole. They can
not see me as they squint. Blowing
my horn, they take off and sprint.

for quiet streets,
where the only sound is
the wind blowing and
the leaves crunching underneath

my feet? Where I can hear
the robin's song and the doves
splashing in the bird bath
all day long. Or the scraping of

the squirrel's nails climbing
up the old oak tree chasing his
tail? I say the solution is
ridding this earth of people

pollution. I like the little cottontail
wiggling his nose and flapping his ears
back and forth as I peer at him, grazing on
my sweet green grass, that needs

a trim! This is how I'd like time to pass,
in quiet reverie, swinging in my hammock
under a canopy of leaves, as a butterfly
winks at me in a billowing cornflower sky.

in bed, with the covers up to
his head. It was a drowning
accident. His parents were distracted,
now they are impacted. She screams

sitting in her wheelchair pulling
out chunks of her hair. She'll not
walk again. And she'll not remember
when she did. There's another

kid in the next room wearing
a breathing tube. He grunts just
like a pig. His father doesn’t give
a fig. He never visits him. His mother,

frail and thin. My son looks the same. But
he doesn’t remember his name. He lost
a big part of his brain. This is how it
is. None of them asked for it.

my street on four wheels
where they don't move
their feet. And screaming like
a banshee, howl. I sit on

my deck and scowl at
the silence they stole. Ugly
trolls at it again just when
I'm billowing in my reverie. They

massacre a memory. I can
not hear the robin sing over their yelling
and bantering. So, I make my way
inside. But I'm still attacked on

all four sides by little people
amplified. I'm a bird in a cage. It just
gets worse with age and spring. I can
not escape the hollering. This was a quiet

street. Now it's a riot of little feet shouting
inanities, calling it play. It's a black cloud
on a sunny day. There's not enough
chardonnay to make the noise go away.

is what we
were. She held up
her end. And I held
up mine all in a straight

line. Talking on
the phone till ten
about music, school
and men. Our

mother's yelling for us
to stop. Was close to
eleven when we got
off. Then life got in

the way. I got married. She
move away. And the books
all tumbled. Guess that’s
the way the cookie crumbles.

ride. All the people outside are
ants. She loses ground in this
dance. Looking through a thick plated
hole at swirls of cotton candy clouds

she bumps around. ****** forward and back,
up and down, side to side, like a roller-
coaster ride. Her quarters are tight and
cramped, strapped like sardines

in boot camp. The food is bland as
the women. And that's all that she is
given. She cannot move; she cannot tweet,
for she is fastened to her seat. All the doors

are closed. The seat-belt sign imposed. She
cannot leave. But she cannot stay. The air
pushed out like Aerosol spray. Her feet swell
like balloons. Her skin is dried up like a prune.

with legs of caterpillar
tracks. She rolls forward and
she rolls back. She's dark
and cramped and armed

to the teeth. She travels
the roads and the streets, plowing
down everything as she goes. She hums
and she zims. Her arm is a turret,

a long, pointed limb. And she'll
aim it at you with a blood cherry
grin. She peeks out at the world
with two slots she calls

eyes and wears her armor
under grey covered skies. No one
comes near her. And no one gets
in. As far as I know, that's how it's been.

are pithy, one word
dangling on the page,
dripping with sweet
intention. In sunlight we

don't engage. And she's
been with me in Paris, in cafes
and museums, though she's not
left her zip code. And I read

her memes, watercolors running
down my screen. I haven't seen
the sun on her face. But I've seen
her children growing up on my

page. And I cannot erase
years of plastered smiles
like cut out paper dolls. I pasted
on my walls. I stich all

her words together and write
'a poem. But I cannot hear
sounds of laughter or bouncing
echoes after, teetering from

her cherry lips. I trip on my
phone, sitting dark and cold
in my purse, as I nurse my lime
and *****. I'll type her another

line, to tell her all is fine. Inside
I'm breaking in shards of splintered
conversation and plastered smiles,
a bookmark of a life wrapped in pixels tight.

and striped shirts.  No dresses
or skirts. Her mother cut her
chestnut hair all off till it
fell on floor in a pixie cut at the

age of four. Girls called her him. She was
short and slim, no curves. They only
had one, no more. Her parents split
up before she turned two. She didn't

wear ribbons or bows in pink. She wore
black and blue in a purple hue.  She did not
laugh and she didn't play. She stayed in her
room till Groundhog's Day. She didn't have a

shadow. She followed in her mother's
wake.  Every night she'd stuff her mouth
full of chocolate cake, curled up in a ball
under the covers. She wasn't invited to parties

and had no friends. She'd write on her hands
and arms with markers and pens. She didn't
bathe. So, the words stayed etched in her
skin. She learned how to walk on needles and pins.

is a cluttered drawer
filled with tickets torn
in half and colored *****
that fizzle in the

bath. Stained cards and
ripped old photos, drummed
up dreams and wrinkled
bedclothes. Spilled perfume

and fire engine red nail
polish, letters that she'll not
demolish. An army knife that
carved his initials, a document

that stated it's official. It's so
stuffed she cannot close it. Today's
the day she'll recompose it line
by line, wrapping it up in poly twine.

started out the size of
a dime. I couldn't stick
my finger into it. When I lost
time it grew into the size

of my shoe. I'd walk around
for miles this way, carrying
the weight till it was as large as
my waist. I was stuck in quick

sand. Going down slowly no one
lent me their hand. The hole turned
into a stone pit that men did
cartwheels and even a

split. Over the years it expanded
as the ocean and sky. Sun and moon
cried into the abyss. I told them
I found the lost continent.

that fan the sky then
what am I? A black insect with
antennae, that can walk,
but cannot fly. Like an eagle

caged with a broken
wing I'm outraged when
my writing hands in a high
arm sling. They say a caged

bird still can sing. But who
will listen to my song when
there's no wind carrying my
notes? When my throat's sore

from breathing stale air? When
the sun is lost on the easy
chair. This patch I land on is so
small. Not room here for an evening

crawl. I'd be someone as a feather
duster, sweeping ceiling fans till
they luster. Gliding and dipping like
a gull at sunset! Just to get my wings wet.

up or push it
down. Put it aside
or bury it with frosted
cream donuts and

chocolate. Drown it
in one-hundred proof. Cover
it like the weathered
shingles on your

roof. Patch it like your
ripped denim jeans. Iron it
out so no one sees
the seams. Pull the splinters

one by one and stick
them in the corkboard with
your black push pins. It's deep
and dark like the sea and bleeding

like a sonnet. Wrap it up and
tie it like a bonnet under your
chin. Now head held high. Fool
them with that wide-tooth grin.

robins splashing
in the white porcelain
bath as I laugh at
two tangled squirrels

tugging at the same
nut. Rolling ***** of fluffy
grey like a ball of yarn they
make their way to a bare

patch of grass with a little
hook and sass. I spy a cornflower
sky with a julep smile as a sunflower
shakes her golden head in a raised

garden bed. A cottontail
nibbles on clover as I roll
over in my knitted hammock among
the trees, living life at ease.

into stone that she's thrown
into a lake. They skip and bounce
like an earthquake. They're so
cold they froze into icicles

on her face. She ties them up
in a bow like a shoelace. She shoots
daggers from her eyes, like lightning
bolts from the skies that take

a man by surprise. Once they
were a river that overflowed into
the land, the city streets like a brass
band. But after years of the flood

the flow had stopped like
clotted blood. She cannot shed
no more. They're all dried up like a
corpse's pore.

with yellow teeth. I hang
the pieces on my door
gathered in a wreath. If you
touch me, my jagged edges

will cut your hand. Some
days I strand fragments of the
glass when I've time to pass. I wear
the reflection around my neck

in quartered sections like
Aztecs. A jeweled medallion
tattooed on my breast, burning me
in the sunlight, in flames upon

my nest. The whole me distorted
in the fractured glass. I'm manufactured,
not built to last. A young girl becomes
a prisoner of her past.

on his arms and shoulders,
weighting him like sandstone
boulders, from someone larger
than him, with mountain

hands that knock down
trees, limb to limb. It hurts!
It hurts! The boy said. His eyes,
swimming pools of ******

red. Bad boy! Bad boy! Sit in your
chair. He'll slap your face and
pull your hair. His mother cannot
eat or sleep, to see her son

bruised and beat. This is
a wicked world, men punching
boys and ****** girls. I have no
will to live in it. A black eye,

a split lip. Hands around
his neck, in a tight death
grip. Nothing here changes.
We are all strangers.

For Alex

you've been sobbing for
years. Collect them in a paper
cup till they fill up the rivers
surrounding the mountains. Eagles

will drink from fountains
you weep. Water the grass and
your garden with them. Build up
a forest from a thin little stem. Collect

them all in a pool. So, on a hot
summer day the neighborhood kids
can swim and stay cool. Splash in the
puddles they make. Fill up the oceans and

lakes. Don't be so quick to dry them
off of your face. Wash your clothes. Make
a bowl of soup with the salty brine. Drink
them. They're cherry wine.

before age two,
before she walked or wore
her first pair of shoes. She
held down the fort when

daddy left home. He was
the type of man, that liked to
roam. She soldiered on through
her mother's drunken nights,

when dear old mom knocked
out her lights. Mopped up her
***** on the kitchen floor. Home
was a place she called

war. She didn’t have ribbons
and satin dresses. Her mouth,
filled with abscesses. She wore
thrift-shop clothes, moth-eaten

ones, with quarter-sized
holes. She dropped out of
school to get a job. Not a day
goes by that she doesn't

sob. But she holds her
head up high because she
has a new home made of
paper. She calls a poem.

like a ball of yarn
the cat pounced on and
swatted at. Every strike of
his paw I grew small

till I was not at all. I unwind
like a spool of fishing line cast
by a silhouette drinking *****,
smoking cigarettes. He spun

a web of lies like a spider
trapping the fly. I was unstrung
like a harp. He couldn't pluck me
with his fingers. The music

died. The wooden frame
all now in splinters. A rope will fray
when cut. I hung on till my edges
grew threadbare. Now I'm dust in the air.

gold was rust the day
this turned to dust. All
the bouncing dots
flatlined. Swans in the lake

turn swine. When did
the sunflowers drop their
heads? Their bright yellow
petals shed like cat hair

on the stripe upholstered
chair. When did the cornflower
sky sigh with the wind and turn
charcoal? How did the moon

break into pieces when once
whole? The sun's rays douses
its light? What cut the string
of the high-flying kite? Why

July, did you turn frost? Blades
in the yard from standing
now moss. The diamond ring
is glass. Inside of it, many cracks.

infesting my floors
and walls. Eating through
the cherry wood till there's a
hole where my house once

stood. He's a pathogen
invading my body with his,
injecting the poison in a shot
of release like a pent up

sneeze. He's smog, polluting
the air I breathe, blocking
my lungs till I wheeze. He's
a bacterial infection spreading

into my tissue. Knocking down
cells, making my brain swell. He's a
malignant tumor growing every day,
till I putrefy in a pool of his lies.

a little black dot that marks
the end. That's my lot. A speck
no bigger than the head of
a pin. There is no way for me

to win. I build a nest on strings
of words that stood before. My life  
is nothing but a bore. I am not
read. And I sit low. People pass

me as they go. And if there's
a question do I get hooked?
Like a wire hanger in a closet
full of clothes or the curl of

a cat's tail above my nose. And if
they make a point they throw me
a line in the shape of a joint! Some
men throw another dot above

my rounded head: So, there’s two
of us, not one instead. My twin is not
fine company. She's just a copy of me. Men
pause; I jump on top bearing my claws.

like a dream,
but chases me around
like a speeding car down
the boulevard.  It dropped

like a burnt souffle'. But
I wake to it every day, smoky
and grey. It's finished like
a line somebody crossed. I was

tossed in the air like
a coin. Landed on heads.  Cut like
threads after stitching. It was
bewitching! It stopped

like a broken clock. Only kept
time twice a day. But in the rhyme,
it sliced my lines.  Expired
like curdled milk from sitting

too long on the shelf. It closed like
a slamming door in my face. I banged
on the wood till my knuckles turned
red. But I haven't in years put it to bed.

like a piece of old silk cloth
bought at the fabric store. And
stitched me into a pair of pants
a moth ate holes in and

danced. Sliced me like a loaf
of bread. Throwing away
the crust and ends. Sandwiching
me with a ****** between a rock

and a hard place with boyish
lust. He shaved me. And I grew
back as new stubble, short and
hard, till I scratch everything

that touches my skin. He axed
me like a maple tree. And I
fell hard, covering his whole
front yard. Then he took my limbs

and shredded them into his
woodchipper. I was broken into
a thousand pieces. My release is
spreading them as mulch in my garden.

like the seasons
from the full bloom of lilac spring
till his room was billowy grey clouds
snowing in shrouds. He was

a ripe banana left in the noonday
sun, turning from bright yellow
to pitch tar, my Freud smoking
cigar. A caterpillar

morphs into a butterfly. But I
died in his cocoon in late
June. Like a blood orange sunset
at night, down went my light. I was

a silhouette hung on his wall. He
dressed from green to red like colors
in the fall. And then stood bare like
the trees. Empty branches

scratching the windowpane
through the howls. The lakes are
sheets of ice that I don't walk
on. The moon will change by dawn.

off some sea-beaten shore,
riding crestfallen waves
propelling a long wooden
oar. His back is slumped right

here in his rollerblade chair. But
his body is limp as his stringy
grey hair. And when I talk it's
like talking to air. His cheeks,

sunken valleys, pale as the noon
day moon. His face wrinkled and
dried like a prune. His lips hard, and
closed tight as a clam. His belly

is soft as strawberry jam. And
to think I was his doxy back in
the day, when I was young and had
moxie, and his legs were a sleigh.

like a watercolor in a wooden
frame standing in the rain. Reds
bled with the blues to create
a purple hue. She wore it as

a brass weathervane high
in a cornflower sky blowing in
the wind, spinning in every direction
till the **** broke off

like a piece of poptart. She
wore it like a river running into
the valley. There was erosion from
all her emotion. She slapped

it on like thunder clouds
clapping out loud. Lightning
striking down a cherry tree. Swimming
in shards of jubilee.