April 19, 2026
9 of Cups
4/19/2026 (c)
There is enough—
the wishing well filled
to the high line,
its mouth enclosed by
stone teeth, worn blunt.
Some draw by bucket and pulley,
trying to quench
the thirst of many.
A farmer uses a cup
and drinks during breaks
to replenish what he’s lost.
I use a porcelain espresso cup—
fragile, diminutive—
sometimes I use a thimble.
I drink often,
so it does not flood me.
March 31, 2026
You Asked Me For My Number
3/31/2026 (c)
It’s hard to say what counts.
I don’t think it’s fair to me
to start tallying up
sex partners before the first orgasm—
or without one.
Without orgasm
sex is either practice,
or punishment.
So I won’t count Mike, Charlie, Paul or Eddie.
Counting starts with my husband.
That’s one.
Except Charlie nearly came through for me
thirty years later
in a rare encounter—
two-fifths of vodka
mutual grieving—
the untimely passing of his best friend—
my boyfriend.
Theoretically, do repeats count
as one, or two?
Still at one.
Chris, Warren, and James—
all impotent.
Chris groped me for hours every Friday
in the back booth
at the Fifth Avenue Bar and Grill—
I got home, climbed on my husband,
fantasizing about Chris—
how would I count that?
René is two.
Five years—more or less.
He enjoyed breaking up with me.
It made me pathetic and needy.
I won’t count anyone I was with
while René neglected me.
That discounts Kevin, Al, and Hoyt,
all married
who would probably appreciate
if I didn’t count them.
I don’t count date rape.
I am still at two.
I’d like to count Don—
that relationship was significant.
I can’t add significance—
everyone was—
a grade school crush
a first kiss,
a love letter with check-boxes to return—
we’d be up in the 100s in no time.
I’m sad to say, Alex counts.
It’s hard to count a stalker—
always there to remind me
I stopped thinking he was special.
Alex makes three.
Until I started this poem
I’d forgotten Gavin.
If one is forgettable
they don’t deserve to be counted.
For four years Rick made four.
And you,
inquisitive,
don’t get to be 5.
Do Over
2015 - rev 2026
When my daughter—
twenty-three, pregnant,
unemployed, single—
asked me if I would do it
over again—
if I would go through
with it,
or would I abort her,
let some fundamentalist Christian
family
raise her—
Christ, I said “of course,”
and kept twenty years
of do-over scenarios to
myself.
Because if I could do it
again,
I would not have married
him.
My sister warned me—
I knew better than
everyone—
even when I didn’t.
Every promise turned out
empty.
I realize now I should
have married him,
taken out life insurance,
killed him myself.
I would have worn my
wedding gown
let it catch the
blow-back, then buried him in it.
Then I would have flown to
Mexico,
learned Spanish—
crusaded for the girls in
the maquiladoras.
My problems are universal.
I’ll never learn
Spanish.
I’d instruct my younger self—
studied computers,
get a job at Microsoft,
retire at forty—
a stable home,
psychoanalysis for my
daughter,
private school.
I could have married for
money.
Love turned out to be a
prison.
How could it be her,
if there was a different
father?
I am afraid to say
it.
If I could do it over again,
I would not have married.
I would not have been
pregnant.
It would be best
if I could go all the way
back—
be born into a kinder
family—
not alcoholic parents.
How could it be her
if it is no longer me?
As a mother I know
the answer
can only be
“Yes, Honey, I would do
it
exactly the same.”
March 29, 2026
The Knight of Pentacles
2021 (c)
It is not that he is immovable.
He is responsible.
He is hired to guard
what others have gathered—
to consider whose labor,
whose wanting
made it so.
He dresses for the role—
not expression,
but recognition.
He knows accounts—
savings, bonds
what will be his
when the time comes.
He thinks of Paris—
wine, a young woman,
a weekend spent
But he does not go.
He is guarding.
He keeps the numbers strait,
the doors locked,
his hands clean.
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