frustration
Street Smarts
it’s a public street
they can’t tell us we can’t park
in an unmarked zone
rich white people suck
all the joy from their mansions
and spit it elsewhere
yet, we shall obey
for we’re mere public servants
who just can’t get home
how can one measure
twenty-five minutes a day
taken from our lives?
simple math, of course:
the same numbers measure how
we teach our students
it’s a public street
and we park on our soap box
with no microphone
Bull-Hearted
like this worn-out dog
i have nearly given up…
yet, i’m a Taurus.

and so i garden
though it, too, is a failure
stolen by flowers

this year’s loss, in pics:
weeds and grass and tearing out
for one little heart


Fuzzy Blooms
thank you for the “no.”
as phallic as this lupine
(allium ignored)

i will learn from this
(things i tell myself at night)
and grow a sagebrush

it will bloom purple
(you can’t see my true color)
and you can’t taste it

yet, here it blossoms
as beautiful as the home
you constantly loathe

i know. i know. i…
you don’t see what i see. stop.
but god. how it hurts.

No Goals Here
perfect skyline view
from this lonely bleacher seat
(as cold as your words)

Reach for It
an exhausting day
with my spirit-week “jersey”
and this fake smile

hidden by these masks
that have broken our world
like a rootless orchid

but this cat. this cat.
a soft purrfection presence
worth a real grin.

The Blues. For Blue.
every election:
because they are so diverse
urbanites vote blue

all it really takes
is a short conversation
with someone different
Remotely Burned
endless tabs open
Google Meets tries to cheer us
but we’re stuck on screens

Zucchini Therapy (Bless You, Barbara Kingsolver)
Zoom meeting hell day
computers that will not work
need zucchini love


Cilantro (Culantro)
he corrected me
even though it’s in Spanish
white buds. so pretty.

‘no’ is a new word
yet so familiar to me.
so adolescent.

we’ll see where this goes.
a flat road to nowhere fast?
or the sky, endless?
