Broken sunglasses
Sitting on my dresser
If I can find the part
Out there somewhere
I can fix them

Jeans too small
In a drawer in my dresser
If I can lose some weight
With diet and exercise
I can wear them

An unframed print
Waiting for a frame on my dresser
It was for a friend
That I don’t talk to anymore
But I could

That dresser is full of “if”s
It’s got drawers and drawers
Of “should’ve”s and “could’ve”s
Things I need to do
And fix.

Cool cool floor
Of smooth hard tile
Barefeet slapping in
Successive taps

Step
       Step
               Step
                       Step

Then onto carpet

Silence.

I love Vick’s Vaporub
Even when I don’t need it.
It’s a smell down
Memory lane
Sometimes just “because”.

It’s like my blanky
Snuggled up against me
As I shiver from a storm
Tapping my window
And the blanket soothes me.

Three boys
I was the youngest
A family of five
In a big old house
With ONE bathroom

I learned the valuable lesson
Of waiting
Patiently
How to hold
It

And getting ready for school
Was a choreography
Of hierarchy
And I would wait
And wait

Until the yellow tiled room was mine
Alone
And I could brush my teeth
In peace
Then spit

Then look in the mirror
Comb my hair
And grin at that kid
Smiling a crooked smile at me
And say “good enough for a small town”

My Dakota plains
Broken by clusters of trees
That surround farms
Connected by black thin lines
Draped between poles
That follow roads

Or a shortcut across fields
On giant steel mannequins
Standing watch over
Corn, beans, sunflower
Or cows or horses
Or sheep

On My Dakota prairie
With rich black dirt
That feed crops
And sustain our towns
Our clusters of life
Our family and self.