Sun Returns

After gray cloudy
Skies drape too many
days, stark nude trees
strike harsh cracks into
snow that glistens
hills under sun’s
return.  We had faith
it would.  Still it
blinds, a surprise,
and a disappointment,
when cold remains
fogged by our own
breathy clouds.

Walk in the Field

Gnarled shattered
trees tangle brown
unshorn prairie
grass.  Wrapped around
a dark rusted
milk can riddled
with bullet holes,
brush lines earth’s
curve, horizon
drawn in under
a blank unjudging
sky.  Silence stills
a respite before
I reach an end
where rusty barbed
wire anchors a dead
tree limb to earth.

Stay

In my first memory,
my father walks out
the door through a burnt
orange aura against
amber glow.  The door
has closed.  I watch.
I wait for him
to reappear,
yet know he will not.
I watch from a height,
too high for me,
held in the other’s arms,
an anchor to that time
before I understood words,
to say do not go,
left behind, words
I would learn yet
never use in time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have an MA in literary studies from University of Iowa, and I manage information security risk at an insurance company. Foliate Oak Literary Review, Cottonwood, Homestead Review, California Quarterly, and Poem most recently accepted my poems for their publications.