Expressive Domain

Like Nobody’s Business

She could blame the caffeine
or the thousand and one
details and unmade decisions
that follow her
home from work
waking her up
at 3:07 to throw off
covers and expectations
of a good night’s sleep,
but she doesn’t.

She just stumbles
to the bathroom,
closing her eyes again
to the glare of the light,
only a sliver
squeezing through
while cupping her hands
trying to sip enough
to swallow an aspirin.

She lay back down,
dreams beginning
to slide again
into distorted cubicles
and his accusation
that work
is
her life.

When the alarm finally rings,
its sharpness
reawakens that throbbing headache,
and she finds only a dribble
of relief
rolling onto the coolness
of his side of the sheet.

She could blame him
for her pain
and her thirst,

but she doesn’t,

faulting only her skillful fingers,

unable to catch water

or men.

I Have Used Up My Allotment of Pixie Dust

Talking frogs
and levitating children
danced with mushrooms
in my imagination.

Fanciful sojourns
to mystical places
could hold me
spell bound
for hours at a time.

Then I grew
too busy for books,
my hands caught up
in other tasks.

Untethered,
I have flown
into the place
where exertion
and exhaustion
collide.

If a floating lady
with a sparkling wand
wants to make me
sleep for a thousand years,

then let her.

Firefly

Her laughter followed her
as she ran at dusk
trapping a winged nocturnal beetle,
an excited firefly.

It glowed during its courtship
producing an intermittent light
from luminescent chemicals
in its abdominal organs.

Catch her smile today
in a clear glass jar,
and its radiance outshines
fireflies chased when she was small.

Her stomach flutters.
A light reflects on her hand
emitting a woman’s smile,
ready to fly into the arms of her love,
her new fiancé,
the man who finally trapped her.

Tribute to the Gods

Egyptian cat god Bastet,
daughter of the sun god Re,
always wore her regal earrings
as she quietly guarded the Nile.

Her spirit has reincarnated
and she entices my worshipping cat
who is staring out once again
with her yellow eyes slanting
through our patio door.

With her hypnotic offering
of glowing golden rays
my cat is lured to watch
Bastet dancing in the shadows
where light and darkness twirl.

Has the Lady of the East
also enticed the spirit of Monet
to come to our back yard?
For a masterpiece is painted there
with dappled colored light,
and only Gods are worthy of the art
that my cat and I admire.

Between the Light and the Storm

I was twelve
a street away from a teen
when I stood in the rain
soaked to my skin.

It was one of those moments
you never forget
when you realize that the event
shouldn’t happen, but did.

I was looking across the street
and realized that my neighbor,
dry as a cactus,
was still in the sun.

It was a cloud over me,
but not him, and our street
was the dividing line
God drew in the sky.

I was sure angels were
forewarned not to cross
to the other side,
but I did.

It was that moment
I started on the road
to adulthood, brave enough
to challenge authority.

I was daring God
to bite me.