Poetry

My poems have appeared in Parnassus, Painted Bride Quarterly, Carolina Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Poet Lore, Plains Poetry Journal, Hellas, and other magazines.

The following poem appeared in Parnassus and in The Art of Country Grain Elevators.

I touch him more than I have to,

cupping his chin,

lingering along the back of his neck.

Bits of him frost the blue bathroom tile,

or drift to settle on my shoes.

Use the clippers, he barks,

not loud.  He lets me do

my pseudo-salon scissors thing

with more patience

than he has ever shown in his life.

And I take advantage, making 

each plane and curve an exquisite

physics to be solved.  His big veiny ear

folds like a leaf under my touch. 

Ain't you done yet? 

This is for the caustic defiance

of high school.

This is for the indifferent drift of college.

This is for all the empty phone calls,

sports and church and weather.

The tufts in his ears, thick as hedges,

I mow them down.  His eyebrows

could break the wire cutters back in Julian.

My scissors even reach in to trim

the damp caverns of his nose.

Uncrease the wattle, pull tight the fold

for the whine of a tired Norelco.  His hand,

impatient.  There.  That's enough.  

Towel, talcum, broom.

This almost final unction of Old Spice.

Orange parka glides by

gray grass and grayer trees,

odd as sasquatch,

on a winter Sunday morning.

The alien wood has weathered

to match its host.  Your eye

might travel by,

assuming odd growth.

The simplest of designs,

platform on tripartite trunk,

ladder boards bridging

one of three V’s.

He pauses 

as if sizing up the climb,

or chasing memory.

Sudden screech of nails,

crowbar working,

then a jerking;

he peels the lowest board

and tosses it aside.

In methodical reprise

he detaches

number two.

How long before he?

Three, as it turns out.

Then he

takes a backward step,

eyes with new respect

the inaccessible

treehouse floor,

and slowly turns to see

his neighbor keeping score.