Daydreams echo in my head,
I’m awake and not in bed.
The house is clean and uncluttered.
I am rested and unflustered.
While Ron and I stay late asleep,
The boys into the kitchen creep.
They make their breakfast everyday
and then put all they’ve used away.
I throw the laundry in to wash
and put up
3 dishes cleaned of pizza sauce.
Ron takes a shower and grabs food to eat
and kisses me on the way out. How sweet.
His office is here at our place,
but he still pretends to go and race.
He locks the door; has his own phone.
We act as if he isn’t home.
The house sits on a plot of land
t see neighbors from where I stand.
The trees are thick, the water near.
We spend a lot of time out here.
The boys are learning French today
so we go to the creek and play.
I know the words for everything
and even know some songs to sing.
When we get home we make lunch together,
soup, salad, queso, depending on the kind of weather.
We did two science experiments
and made two sets of artsy prints.
We go out to the library and book store.
We thumb through books and read galore.
I find a biography of a man I admire.
The boys borrow books on space, dinos, and spires.
Tomorrow’s Spanish. That’s a thrill.
It’s a tongue I love and always will.
The boys are learning it quite well
and listen to the tales I tell.
Tomorrow we’ll go to the nursing home
and visit the residents and roam
the halls wide seeking out
someone who doesn’t get about.
I’ll give to them the art we made
and sit with them in a slice of shade
and tell them of the things we’ve learned
and all the accolades we’ll someday earn.
When we get home, the house is neat.
I sit down and read––a treat.
The boys go play a video game.
It’s something good. I forget the name.
Then I start supper cooking
and make sure my face is still nice looking.
When Ron comes home it is a joy.
He spends time with me and with each boy.
Some friends are coming over for dinner.
I’ve made enchiladas. They’ll be a winner.
We’ve plenty of seats for everyone
and while grownups talk the kids will run.
Once the boys are fast asleep
I go to the grocery store to creep
down the aisles searching avidly
for the food we’ll all eat happily.
We have no debts. Our bills are met.
When we need something, it’s not hard to get.
When the grocery shopping’s done
I take the food and head for home.
Ron comes out and helps carry in.
Then we both go read in the den.
At eleven or twelve we head for bed
–in the daydreams in my head.

1998-1999

The soap slides down my skin
and eddies into the drain
with the water that soaks my frame
and leaves me dewy wet.
I briskly brush my body with the towel
but it seems the water loves me
Dripping hair hangs down my back
and adds to the drenching
after I have already begun the drying.
The sounds of harsh water hitting the tub
fades away
as the curtain quits dripping.

1998-1999

An Ode to my Refrigerator,
at least the outside,
an ode to my refrigerator
it is a symbol of my life.
Graced by a casserole dish
of blue and black
made by the potter’s hands.
Hiding, under its weight,
the works of baby’s crayons.
The freezer offers a tableau
of Doric and Ionic columns here.
The spires, though, are Romanesque
and reach up to the sky.
The door to the fridge itself
is covered now with pictures.
Christmas this and Christmas last,
Hawaii, and a new house.
Plus Crash Bandicoot and an escape pod.
And a tiny magnet with a girl
in the rain saying, Thank you, God.
One side is empty.
I want it to look clean.
The other side is full
of calendars and old Mom’s Day cards
that say I’m wonderful.
I hide them there for me.
I’m the only one to see
that he said thank you
for cooking peanut butter sandwiches
and taking him to play at Mickie D’s.
My refrigerator
holds a great amount of food,
but the best parts
are on the outside.
t miss the importance
searching through the foods.

1998-1999

Tomorrow is yesterday, my little boy said.
When he saw wedding pictures with the garter he asked,
why is Daddy taking off your underwear?

This is a fragment of a poem begun in 1998-1999.

Oak tree by the gate
Beauty quiet and deep
standing by while I sleep
All my life you wait.
Gray–browed in bark all rough.
Deep green leaves drop down
Branches forming your crown
To stop the sun, strong enough.
Silence standing guard
I grew under your limbs
Singing rock songs and hymns
In your yard.
Thick trunk growing so wide
Never hands got around
Growing up from the ground
And embracing the sky.
Summer sun shelter true
While I rest in your shade
In its coolness I wade
Back to you.

1998-1999

Green grass spread wide for a wedding.
Angels rained confetti seeds on the garden.
White calla lilies bunched with heirloom carnations
and a single white rose
held together with white silk ribbon
heralded the matron of honor and the bride.
The bride, in high heels which sank into the dirt,
danced in the arms of the groom,
dashing in Italian silk.

The minister held the rings out flat on his palm
and spoke of precious metals;
giggles suppressed over stainless steel
died into sparkling tears sniffed back
over vows exchanged.
The mothers let theirs drift down their faces
and onto their gowns of burgundy and navy.

It was not reasonable
a man should love such land,
but he did.
Though he left and took us with him,
he suffocated in the mountains of upstate New York,
felt trapped in the miles of trees
of East Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina.

He missed the flatlands–
the plains my junior class could not believe existed.
He loved the trees announcing like billboards
a family home, just out of sight.

My mother loved it.
Once.
Returning from her folks
the train was slower than her homesickness
which raced ahead with her heart
toward my dad.
The final hour the lights of Lubbock
twinkled through the evening sky,
beacons proclaiming
“Almost home.”
She loved the flatlands once.

I loved the flatlands too,
though many times, not once or always.
Swimming in the irrigation ditches,
climbing squat trees and swinging on old tires,
hiding from the heat in the dugout,
finding dinosaur teeth in the cornfield,
eating cherries while cradled in the boughs.
The plains were stickers and caliche pits,
cotton hard in husks,
and those grass snakes Debbie used to scare me.

I miss the house on the farm,
moved to town and placed on a new foundation.
I miss my grandparents
and our summerwide family reunions.
I miss the land where little rain and fewer people
make the world harder and hardier.
The plains used to hoard my family.
The plains are faithful;
my family dispersed.

I loved West Texas, not because it was beautiful, but because in it I created such memories.

I Miss

Icebox, a simpler thing to fix, say, and spell.
It kept in the coolness and let out the smell.
Dugouts, cool and dark, smelling musty,
home for snakes, cans, and hiders who’d get dusty.
Polecats striped in dark and light
getting at chickens late at night.
Well house, where the water came,
where lettuce stayed crisp and we raced in a game.
Bright yellow school bus, home of rebel bees,
d run through the pasture and skin up our knees.
Tower tanks to fill tractor, truck, and combine,
more fun for Popeye, to jump from and climb.
Irrigation ditches and stock tanks ready made for a dip,
go swimming––accidentally––following a slip.
A tire swing, old rubber made new,
for swinging, flying, and changing the view.
Cherry trees and apple, close to the ground,
easy to pick from, easier to get down.
The hen house full of grain, eggs, and chicken;
most ended up in my grandmother’s kitchen.
Freezing our bottoms cranking ice cream,
hand aching turns till we’re ready to scream.
Sunday beef and potatoes, early bites of heaven snitched.
Coffee and Prince Albert, Grampa smells that bewitched.

My grandparents are dead. Their house was sold to a family in town who moved it off the lot. My cousin bought, begged, and was given the land and he lives their with his wife who paints. He is a public defender.