Selected Poems
The Waiting Girl
from the waiting girl
You best believe
I am fit as a dandelion,
facing the day
in a crown of gold,
my roots rough-hewn,
knurled as a hand saw.
And yet I wait,
thrusting the frost,
suckling the minutes
until you see me.
You placed your faith
in a cloud of seedlings,
not expecting this-
this erect scattering
like a thorned prayer
feckless, yours.
May
Published in the hollins critic
The silverbells have now let down
their fine petals, those that
swell and sugar the sip
of tiger swallowtails.
The pale fire of a wild
azalea blazes erect
in stippled sunlight and
the bare limbs of trees
have folded to leaves
lustful and lime. It seems we
are wrought for the churn
of spring and we turn to waltz
when it arrives. We, who
like children, spread our hands wide.
and reprinted in memories of green
Passing
From the southern poetry anthology
You clutch a handkerchief
like a fulvous leaf clinging to a limb,
and I imagine that fragile linen
must feel the pulse of all your life,
the way you tap-danced on a chair
while waiting for a pound cake to rise,
the way you sung us up a stepladder
to a farm-sink bath on those sunshine
mountain evenings, the way you
taught us to snap beans in the moonlight.
We drifted to your hushed crooning,
the low rumble of our rocking,
but now I rock by your bedside,
place a palm to your cheek,
feel the warmth of your new life
radiating from your body.
Swaddled in a homemade quilt,
you glow like you have crossed over,
your face slack-peaceful as a child.
Maybe you see what is out there,
maybe you are skimming
the tips of stars with your hemline,
maybe you are dancing the
Charleston on the wisp of a cloud.
and reprinted in the WAITING girl