Author: admin

I call it my cathedral of conscience.
Mostly it’s a tower of silence
and stillness and listening.
It demands nothing

“Digging in the Italian village of Valdaro–near the city of Mantua, a setting for the famous Elizabethan tragedy–they uncovered a startling double burial. Dubbed the “Lovers of Valdaro” by the media, the pair were huddled close together, face to face, their arms and legs entwined, seemingly in an eternal embrace.”

Each day Grandma holds a ceremony
more verbs than nouns—

Outlined in fine, black ink
where white identifies with empty,
I am the artichoke in the garden
asking to be transformed
as light through a crystal prism

I weep for vividness
of childhood memories
when my life was beginning

maps…were blamed for the amputations,
for the soiled knees of widowhood, …
It was the line drawn through Delmarva
between one narcissist and another.

Dad’s accordion gestures
scratchy fiddle
ruckus guitar
grandma’s washboard

He was blind, could not see through the dark
A volt of electricity stiffened his spine
He imagined a swarm of bats dash behind him
the wind pushing against the pane of the window.

It’s all here
a few fleeting
musical moments
all here

I struggled through Junior Life-Saving, couldn’t tug the drowning man pool-side, though I got him off the bottom okay. The instructor said I just needed a little more weight.

We left sterile bland room
Mom alone beside bed
as the end neared