Widow
*On August 9th 1914, British troops departed to Germany for WWI. By the end of the barbaric war, 3-4 million women were estimated to have been widowed.
Baby August has told her first untruth.
Buds bloom no more to meet a genial world.
The widow seizes all the pendant flowers
with which she sought to bid her spouse farewell.
An ave before he was enmeshed in war.
Candles alive to witness one more love
have danced themselves to death and killed their flame.
She cannot rid her coverlet of wrinkles.
She cannot clasp a glass of wine without
scowling askance at its momentous shade.
She distrusts the cup; trusts more in malaise,
distrusts the very fairness of her skin.
She finds her pallor does not need her hug
to blanch her husband; fear can do as much.
Azures darken with the smoke of chimneys
whilst vaguely through an open door, she hears
her curtains, bandying with winds of fate.
He breathes, he breathes—can she be widowed thus?
She strips her newly funereal bed,
dethroning love through taking down his roses.
Yet neglecting some petals on her sheets
which mourned their king’s expulsion when—
having washed them too—mistakenly—they
tinged her covers in a cruel crimson.
Then when she made some play of them in hand
the reddest of the petals poured their flush.
Purpled sinks, bloodied hands but—of whose blood?
She has read her husband’s fate upon their walls.
Interpreting the muteness of her home
and wordless corridors as signs to know,
that though he breathes—she is a widow.
Mary’s Window
the six of us in a downpour
nighttime, late March
lantern remaining lit on the front steps
our guide, Eric, tells us of eight or more known séances
connecting to lost sons
seventeen years in this home—best of your life
laughs for hours in the kitchen and parlor
light on your five-foot-two silhouette
outline witnessed on a shade right of the door
I glance to find you
nearly 200 years after your prologue
forty minutes of tales we rid our umbrellas
questions, wows, tisks
no one else on these cobblestones
across South 8th Street a light flickers above the door
Blake and Victoria pose for a photograph
frightened from a thump in the living room
yet you do not show yourself
rather admire the children from a distance
Daycare in the Closet
I search for light in the eye
in her that put me away.
Though, I do not understand why
you lock me in the padded closet, keep me from the sky—
Heat from the static tv, a breathing bane.
I search for light in the eye.
A Blue Bear, Purple Pegasus, and Hanging Jackets I personify.
The repeating of Mickey Mouse VHS tapes is my chain,
Though, I do not understand why.
Mother, let me out— Long hours go by—
I struggle to myself, am I just a stain?
I search for light in the eye.
The door opens and I’m about to cry.
My favorite color, sky blue, but instead I find rain,
Though, I do not understand why.
I was once a Monarch Butterfly.
Mother, why end my reign?
I search for light in the eye,
Though, I do not understand why.
Skull Room
don't remember
being scared
there
in the skull room
where
i went to look for watering can
feed flowers on grandfather's grave
there
in the skull room
where
wooden cubbies cob-webbed
held single skulls
along wall vaulting fifteen-feet high
in wet alcove
side a centuries-old church
top a steep hill
with three cemetery rings concentric
but
my five years
could not
understand
the skull room
where
next day
i thought i ought
return
so walked
one mile at five years
along dirt road
alone
back
to the skull room
to look for a shovel
for grandfather's grave.