3/18/26 (c)
Even before I was born, I knew
it was best not to inconvenience Momma.
She was unconscious, unaware
how carefully, how quickly I slid out
from her unwelcoming womb
into the loud, jarring world.
She missed the first abusive slap of my birth
and spent the rest of our life trying to replicate it.
03/17/2026 (c)
After decades of absence,
I am in my parent’s bedroom.
They are both dead
so the bedsheets aren’t pulled
to military perfection.
My siblings and I consider
living here again—
together—
in this asbestos-plated house,
where paint has been emptied
into the rhododendron bush,
the roses pulled out.
Everything is painted a muted pea-green.
A four-bedroom house and still
we fight over this room—
the one that doesn’t get light.
My sister and brother
have homes out of state
I have a home in this city.
Still, I know
I will be the one
who can’t stay away,
can’t stop looking
for an ounce of warmth.
3/14/2026 (c)
The incessant started
after my tubal ligation.
I wanted to—but didn’t—
gut myself with a boning knife—
spleen myself open
at the top of the stairs.
Every month lower lumbar
and I soaked—unsuccessfully—
scalding— in Epsom salts,
or my abdomen and twenty
ibuprofen did nothing—
clots the size of mice.
Different experts said somatic, anxiety, weight—
a Priest said sin. I was Eve’s curse.
I needed subjection.
This. For over twenty years.
Pills. Pain. Blame.
I am going to turn my pain into an opera.
Singing boosts immune function
and releases oxytocin.
I am going to write a memoir
about my pain
and show others how I threw it off—
or how I kept it around forever.
Either way it is satisfying.
I am going to tweeze my eyebrows
into a permanent scowl.
I am going to add the history of my pain
to my elevator speech and into my resume
and someday I may scratch it off my bucket list.
3/14/2026 (c)
Thirty years after the civil war
a newly developed 1%
made up of the richest 4,000 in the US—
gathered at the New York Waldorf Hotel
to celebrate their accelerated wealth,
status and determination to keep it all.
The agricultural country flipping
to Industrial—
thank you, Pennsylvania Railroad.
Bless you, Standard Oil.
Your untold wealth kidnaps our dreams.
Thank you, townships, your hungry
populations crowding into cities.
We’ve become tools—
My legs suffer sore locomotion
over concrete cracks and uneven floorboards.
My back is bent.
I disintegrate from the inside out.
You’ve made my body into another worn structure
ready for you to rezone and bulldoze—
or at least, abandon.
Thank you, Barons for those cold steel beams—
as if they are “good bones”.
All those lies about living forever.
All I want now is to sit and drink coffee
and read a few good books—
(8/2025)
In the 1600s Kepler presented a coherent theory:
planets move around the sun—
in ellipses, not circles.
(The number 6
symbolizes balance
and harmony).
The earth is not the center.
Humans are not the center.
Humans are brutal censors.
(The number 6 encourages selflessness
and duty).
Invaluable to navigators, Kepler’s theories
challenged world views.
Strangely – for those times—
the church did not execute him—
even though his own mother
was imprisoned for witchcraft.
(The number 6 is a balance between
material and spiritual realms).
“If the earth were to stop drawing
its waters to itself,
all the waters of the sea
would rise and flow towards the Moon.”
(The number 6 seeks alignment
and stability).
Kepler died of fever, no more, no less
happy than any of us.
(8/2025)
A die-hard misanthropist, I haven’t even bothered
to acknowledge kin on Memorial Day. My great-Aunt,
however, holds regular seances to communicate
with our ancestors.
She has tracked our lineage all the way back
through slave-holders and land barons,
through castles and mud, past four-footed mammals,
squid, and synapsids. She has found us living
on a hydro-thermal vent among tube worms,
limpets, and shrimp.
I wonder just how disappointed my ancestors are
at my inability to weather the cold—
my deep fear of equally deep water—
my lack of gratitude for what others may have done
to make my small life possible—
a quiet endpoint whose only sound
is breathing.
2/28/2026 (c)
Who am I? (A woman) and where do I fit in the adult world?
(I wasn’t meant to fit in. I was meant to shake the very
foundations of “normal”)
(like every woman) born into the shadow of the bomb, into the
dawn of Aquarius.
All (our) houses (become) haunted by the person (one)
might have been.
Wraiths and phantoms creep under (our) carpets.
Life is but a procession of shadows…we embrace them so
eagerly,
and see them depart with such anguish.
(This) inexorable flow of the river of time,
(our) deep disappointment in relationships that…
failed.
Leading a human life is a full-time occupation
(In a sexist society) …the most despised
and dispensable person…is an older woman.
(I) ha(ve) no value or purpose to men.
One day (daughter,) it will be your turn to play the role of
the woman
who took the back seat, waiting for equality,
politely fading away while achieving fuck all.
I am frightened of things staying the same.
