The Tire Swing
She drove sixty miles to sit down with her mom,
but she can't bring herself to step
out of the car, walk past the lawn mower,
stalled with rusty wounds. The grass
cheers victory around it.
Her life tied its slipknot
on top of the tire swing in the front lawn,
her yellow sun-dress rubbed black,
her thighs red from holding
the rope between her legs, almost a tickle
from a boyfriend's hand.
Had she known her choices would mold
her life into a bracelet of men
each one interchangeable, charming, and plastic,
she would have cut that thick rope
and dragged that old tire to the road.
From the hill she would watch her future
spray the pavement with collected rain,
painting a wet line as it rolls away,
wobbles dead in the grass.
David’s Mother
She settled life
in the layers of her freezer,
lost pieces of wedding cake
wandering between bacon
and a bag of sweet corn.
Three epochs down
is a pair of white baby booties
flat in places where they should
be warm and round.
A carnation smothered
in Saran Wrap sleeps there,
its pink face and leaf-arms
raised against the stem.
Had she known so much beauty
existed with her perishables,
she'd visit the freezer more,
pick up this flower
and hold it cold to the back
of her hand, close her eyes
to see her husband's coffin
and the buttery elation on his face.
Atop the frozen heap,
next to a beef pot pie,
is a shoe box of pictures:
her son behind a bar piano,
his girlfriend like a scarecrow
in white clothes lying on a bed,
him running,
her eating a Twinkie,
both lying on the hood of a car.
In every picture they smile
like licorice and cracks in dry mud,
thin smiles like piano wire
and crescent moons. Now,
when she opens that freezer,
she feels those cold clouds
roll down her legs,
and she can't eat for days.
Waking Up in a Barn
Her lungs fill up
like burlap sacks
and her insides
bristle, crack out
and sneeze.
She watches him
sleep in the next stall,
where the window
rains yellow morning.
Each time he breathes,
the dust loops its ribbon
arms, and the barn
heaves its dry chest.
Romance is the itch
dripping down her
arms, the prick of each
tick bite, the feathery
cadence of spider legs
across her ankles.
She rakes each groove
and welt red, until her
skin is a jagged network,
a connect-the-dots
finished, pink, and swollen.
