Writing Portfolio

Pieces of My Career

I’ve put together a selection of my most recent published work. I’m proud of each and every piece and hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. For any inquiries, please get in touch.

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Snapdragon, 6.2022

Blood on the Leaves

She wandered among trees they used to

walk together. A little wren trilled

a question and a distant woodpecker

rat-a-tat-tatted at cancerous incursion.

She walked quietly from long practice,

hoping his diagnosis was not true, and

did not scuff ground-fall leaves, did not

stalk frantic doctors. An old logging road

twisted between trees, like her life with 

his big personality, and she wondered 

when loggers might return with noisy

chainsaws.  Slash left lying makes safe

refuge for chipmunks and allows them

possibility of escape. But his chemo didn’t.

Only drawn-out graying of cheeks. Then

death. Air is threadlike in suddenly thinned

woods, and takes some getting used to, like

the thinned life of a new widow. There’s

a patch of fur on the ground, claw marks

in dirt and blood on the leaves.

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Door=Jar Summer '22, #23 p111-114

Signature Required

She holds the divorce Judgement

and cold slinks in, slithers

along floor, scents

a warm ankle, curls up calf

behind knee

curls ‘round thigh, buttock

to the waist and enters

like an epidural, spreads

along hips, over tummy

up ribcage, back of arms

down past elbow to hands

fingers

cold,    cold     fingers

and movement is difficult,

movement becomes

painful and so it’s time.

Time to move, time

to sign and be released.

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Door=Jar Summer '22, #23 p111-114

Leashing a Teen

I worry about my teen starting to drive,

wanting to go off by herself as she

pulls hard at the leash, yes

we’re holding on

as she pulls the choke collar tight

and it’s taking both of us

just to stay the path

as she sniffs the undergrowth—

because we know, oh yes, we know

the meat in there that attracts her and

where we buried our favorite bones.

Yes, we have to hold on

hold on, double up the leash,

hoping it's strong enough

hoping we're strong enough

and you know, it would be nice to have

a pair of elbow-length padded gloves,

the kind they use to train attack dogs—

cause sometimes         the teen turns on us

like a bitch in heat, and                snarls with

narrowed eyes                         but we remember, oh yes,

we remember and reach out slowly to her

like those who calmed us so long ago

when we snapped the leash

so we hold on tight, sometimes

taking turns sometimes together,

as we slowly give her full reign.

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Door=Jar Summer '22, #23 p111-114

An Owl’s Call at Dusk and Dawn

A hum fills the silence

between short, deep

owl calls. The hum that’s

my constant companion,

tinnitus. I don’t think about it

anymore—weave it into

ecstatic union with

sounds around me  

and make it song—

otherwise it’ll drive

me crazy. Because

there are no crickets here

there is only tinnitus,

so I weave that

constant high note

with the owl’s short,

deep ones and as self

glimpses self, I stretch

beyond loss of hearing

into that small death where

I can hear my own song.

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Gyroscope Review. Summer 2020, P.19

Aging Gym Rats.

We regulars recognize each other

as we look for a secret to forestall

the inevitable, an elixir

to stop the nagging aches.

At the gym we see the old man,

bent back from too much desk work

shuffle between machines.

The wispy-hair perfectly coiffed woman

with bright red lipstick, black,

black eyebrows and too much foundation

pushing oxygen with her emaciated hand 

and we gym rats work a little harder.

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Indigo House Review. March 2021.

Grandma's Hands

Low palms capture light in their long

boney fingers and maiden hair fern nestles

in shade, waiting its turn to feed

and I wonder why, why am I so tired and

have to suck in my stomach

to button the pair of jeans that used to

hang at my hips, and I think about

my mother’s middle-aged friends–

like the one I’m turning into–

smiling complaints about spreading

middles and the power of gravity, and

how those smiles hid the desperation

of foot soldiers losing the battle to stay

slim and youthful—because the enemy

is winning, this enemy called age.

And I wish for acceptance of the

fine lines and sagging jowls—

those lines that show you’ve lived

and laughed. I remember Grandma’s

shy embarrassment of the age spots

on the backs of her hands, and regret

I didn’t take her beloved hand

in both of mine, and wait for what she

never said about turning seventy-five.

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Stickman Review, V20N2

  Your Grease Monkey

Life now is a lot like a model A,

back when they were new. Everyone’s

trying to create a horseless me—

one that can be left out of the barn,

out in rain, one that’s

self-sustaining, not self-deprecating.

And it seems to be coming along,

this journey into a future

that includes the Gull Wing.

This journey, where women

develop cleaner lines

to slide through their encounters—

yes, it seems to be coming along,

this journey

where women invent new suspension

to withstand bumpy bits,

low-profile tires to hold curves.

This journey,

where they don’t need someone else

to buff wax, check air,

wipe the dip stick. All right, all right,

they need a specialist to pull

the carburetor and retool the fittings,

but their girlfriends are really good

grease monkeys and get in their guts

to change the air filter before they choke

on their own pollution. So yes,

it’s coming along, this journey

to a horseless me where everything’s

different and yet so much the same.

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The Remington Review. 7.2021, Page 7

                  Birdcage.

The cage was brass and

shiny, but built from pin feathers

pulled from her wings.

Now, she’s exposed, since

her perch has no bars, and

she might fall. She doesn’t dare

try out her wings. Teenage-she

laid the base of the cage, set

sockets to hold pin feather- bars

and a shiny finial to lock her in.

Kept prisoner by her marauding

teenage critic. Now, she has to

take a chance, beat against air

and rise, catch an updraft

but the critic circles above.

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Dodging the Rain. June 2021.

Harvest Time,

I have no regrets about paths not taken,

career not pursued,

fetus lost before viable,

harbor no regrets about material choices made—

although I want a do-over for some relationships

and maybe I’ll have that opportunity

next time through, but now

looking back, I see the choices I made as a path

through mist. I trust that the ground

will be there when I lay my foot down, receive me

when I stumble and drop. Solid terra firma

bruises my knee, scrapes my palm

forces me to pause, nurture punctured skin

with clean water, A&D ointment, and

beige Band-Aid. When I rise, because I have to rise,

I can’t hide in bed all day¾the way waits for me.

Waits for me with trappings of fall underfoot

those red-hued or golden leaves lie about

like discarded dresses, and I think of preserving

their luminosity between wax paper, sew them

into a robe with a high collar I fling on like a mantle

and in that act, I own the colors. I look in the direction

my toes face while mist kisses my skin with promises

that the way will be there when I step out.

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Dodging the Rain. June 2021.

Your Left Ear,

   is mine if you make her cry, and

if you think I’m any ol’ hay-seed,  

go ask someone ‘bout Fred. 

That swaggering bully with

easy blue eyes, tight jeans

and loose shirt, yes, ask someone  

if they know why Fred

wears his baseball cap with bill

cupped low over one ear. Now

mind you, I meant to take

the whole thing, but I hadn’t the skill

back then, to slice just between

skull and soft lobe, slice straight up

without damaging a hair, nope

I hadn’t that skill back then, but

it never mended right. Like her heart.

His ear’s still mangled they tell me.

So, I’m just saying, you seem

like a nice fellow and I’d be

glad to see her happy, but your

left ear is gone if you hurt her.

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Dodging the Rain. June 2021.

Why I Won't.

I’m not allowed

to slide the smooth

sharp edge

along my vein.

Not allowed to cut

little slivers

along my leg.

I’m not allowed

to inflict my mutilation

on others, 

wound others

with my internal critics.

Not allowed

to slip

into oblivion

which would release ripples

of horror

to unknown places

and touch unexpected people

because suicide

is like that.

It vibrates in the air

long after you’ve gone.

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Lummox Poetry Anthology #9. October 2020. Page 35.

A Mare's Swagger,

I like a mare’s swagger,

up and down of head

as feet move in tandem,

ripple of muscles,  flick of tail.

Mares gleam in the sun, 

doin’ their thing, moving

through their day

the way I own the sidewalk,

poised and self-possessed—

until I register

the third time  a man’s look

follows me. Then I wonder

whether there’s spinach

between my teeth or

my makeup smeared and I

stumble, inside, for just a minute.

But on sunny days,

I walk my mare-swagger,

on sunny days, I walk heart-first,

and sparkling palm fronds wave

as though to catch my attention

with their double time glee.

On sunny days, I notice

sunbeams on water,  a dog’s

wagging tail. That’s the great thing

about being on the sidewalk

in sunlight, the windows

don’t reflect, whereas

on cloudy days, I see my  

reflection and all that I judge. 

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Lummox Poetry Anthology #9. October 2020. Page 35.

My Lover.

When he passes me I don’t see grey hair—

I feel his arms around me and hear whispered words.

His hand trails across my back,

down around my curves—

making promises to my senses.

When he lectures our daughter

on the importance of doing the work first,

she leans forward on her elbows

eyes follow him

from the fridge to the cutting board to the stove,

attention fixed on him like a perfectly tuned string

which his words run up and down

like an Eric Clapton rift.

I walk quietly then, listening

to the melody between them.

When he passes by

I do not see a round, softened belly.

I remember the day before,

the throw from third base to first, that broke

the laces of the first baseman’s glove.

My lover passes by,

the back of his hand caresses my cheek,

slides down around and opens behind my neck.

Cradling my head with his irresistible touch

he reminds me that I am his and he is mine.

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YESANDYES

See poem below.

Poetic Diversity. November 2020.

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Choices.

See poem below.

Better Than Starbucks. July 2020

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A Precious Truth, Cuik Magazine

Bridge to the Fog, Classique Journal