In the IGA refrigerated
to a degree for maintaining ice cream,
she wheels the chrome cart down the produce aisle,
where the vegetables are threatening
to freeze and bananas seem the sole safe fruit, Continue reading “Shopping”
Category: Poems
Poetry from Oklahoma
Skimming Clouds
What is known
Is all inside, beneath the buttons,
Below the bone,
To the heart of the human,
Above the clouds Continue reading “Skimming Clouds”
Blowing up the Microwave
She didn’t want the damn thing. She TOLD Jack
and Leigh, I got no use for that damn thing.
They set it up on the table she kept
potted plants and grocery sacks on, and she
ignored it for two weeks before warming
up some dinner rolls. She pushed start; her heart
fluttered at the sound of the glass cracking.
It’s that twisty-tie, Jack said on the phone.
Continue reading “Blowing up the Microwave”
Her Closet
The closet is musty with cold mildew.
The cut-rate carpenter glued sheets of plywood
to the concrete block foundation with no
penny of thought for insulation or worse.
Glue hardens instantly in Oklahoma wind
and the gaps appear, moisture dripping in.
Carpet breeds green blobs, cotton dresses
filling with the thick damp odor of acorns. Continue reading “Her Closet”
Before the Flood
In the kitchen, I look through the window
On the east wall and see the sun
Hazy behind the new curtain of honeysuckle
On the barbed wire fence
And through the window
On the west wall, the grey sky
And the rain creasing brown oak leaves
In the ditch where the dandelions
Are sprouting. But there is no divide Continue reading “Before the Flood”
T-Ball
The boys running the bases like rabbits
scurry to far-off places, not moving
toward targets—just moving. Montie Jean
recalls the ballgames she played as a child
in the dusty pasture where milo died
early. She can’t believe she was ever
as small as these kids. One sits on the bench
crying. Another has smeared snot and dirt
up the side of his face and into his hair. Continue reading “T-Ball”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 