marriage
Scene Five from a Marriage
scene five from a marriage:
a broken spring equals a broken toaster
but not just any toaster
my bake-everything toaster
my savior to a shitty oven
my air fryer
my baker of brownies and pies
my upper-class kitchen in my middle-class house
i asked if he *thought*
it could be opened up and fixed
and before i’d moved the laundry
from the washer to the dryer,
he had the drill out.
you’ll never find this
i want to tell the world
my daughters
my soul at age nineteen when he walked
so uncertainly
into Pete’s Kitchen
but i did.
i found the man who’d drill a toaster
on a hellish Thursday
a Thursday dripping with tears and self-doubt
just another scene
from a marriage that works.

Scene Four from a Marriage (Fences)
it's not romantic
and yet it's so romantic
i garden. he builds




I Needed this Day
Scene Two from a Marriage
Scene One from a Marriage
Orchid Power
Flowers for Futures
after four days off
(a vacation i needed)
what a perfect note

and the orchid blooms!
he bought her eight years ago
(just a baby then)

they were babies then
my daughters, their dolls, these blooms
(trying to find light)

now unstoppable
bursting with so many buds
(flowers for futures)
Upslope
A Fresh Look
twenty-five years back
he asked me to marry him
so began our lives
