That first fumble at the buttons
that stood between you
and the mysteries of ripening breasts,
I was at my mother's.

You've learned the art long since,
the practiced slide of a strap

Perhaps in May, when tea roses climb
the lattice beneath my window,
you and I will wreathe limbs
on soft sheets of percale;
then hours will blossom full again
in May when tea roses bloom.

Chipmunk boldly holds
ground. SUV acquires
fresh retread fur patch.

April 2005

It's been far too cold to put on running shoes
But when I don't jog I start singing the blues
I've been feeling these days like a HUGE butterball
But it's been way too icy; I fear that I'd fall

Luther reformed catholic thought
with ninety-five theses,
yet nailed one worldly observation
that a woman should wear
her finest ornament
falling free down her back.

I wish I were a daffodil,
a lovely little bloom,
Then you would come and pick me
and place me in your room.
You then would soundly go to sleep
with me in my pot,

They call it Flickr, Flickr, sharing your photos
digitally, upload them for free!
'Cause we know Flickr soon will addict you and then you'll
upgrade and go Pro for a small fee!

We used to lie in the bed of your Ford
on new moon nights. You plotted your course
along the arch of my back, pledged Orion
and the Northern Crown with a warm-mouthed

My friends are cutting their hair. We're 50ish now,
and I wonder, should I cut mine? My grandmothers
never snipped their covering, but never let it fall free, either,

For my Grandparents

I only remember you from photos
and yellowed portraits that Mom grouped
on our wall. By the time I was six
you'd been betrayed by cancer's Judas kiss,

For My Great Grandparents

I wonder if it was sunny that Illinois August day
that Joseph and Sarah rode over to Carlinville
in a borrowed wagon. Wearing the county's rural dust

the hole the towel bar left when it fell
hasn't been plastered up these ten years,
or because the gutters never get cleaned
unless I stranglehold the ladder, or because

Inspired while cleaning the garage one Saturday morning

I'm finally free of the scourge of the 'Graphic,
I've broken the cycle of monthly arrivals.

Those were Grandpa's odd eyes
looking out past my shoulder,
stoic from high on the wall.
I gazed back through desuete glass,

then read the hands of the woman,

Good thing she was sitting down
as she flipped through the pictures
taken by the someone who'd last handled
Mom's camera. She'd wiped off

three years of dust before packing up