flashing by with the taste
of a sweet green pepper
dancing on your tongue
saltwater acrid in your nostrils
as it dries off sunbaked skin
the ache, the lift of joy
the voices you loved most
mother, daughter, holy ghost
all your brain ever held
spills out into the universe
where nothing is ever lost
just tumbles
into other forms of matter
what then are we given at the end:
a flood of warm chemicals to bathe us in bliss
an angel’s arms lifting us to heaven
knowing everything we’ve ever done
or only resting in oblivion

Faith hope and love
are intertwined
each one builds the other
in strength combined

Faith that the light 
will always shine
upon us and within us
throughout all time

Hope that grows like 
the first green of spring
that we nurture into
blossoming

Love that breaks us
and heals us again
teaching us that
Love is all that’s ever been

Give us faith
Give us hope
Give us love 
that we may give
our hearts and souls
to the mystery
of eternity

Love eternal, Love divine
Only love outlasts time

On the morning my father died
I ate oatmeal
my broken arms mending
themselves even then
tears and snot flowing
my functioning face
spoke of love I thought
heart and lungs
could not live without
we have appetites
we sit on our bones
and worry about our flesh
and every year pass unknowing
the anniversaries of our deaths

She says: I feel like we have a variety show going.
And thinking of wilhelmina ballerina, who just leapt in
and out of here like a deer coming from the wings of woods,
I say: You mean all these characters we know?
She says: no, and with a ringmaster’s wave
indicates the bowls amassing on the counter
Lining up under the bigtop of the kitchen
for the dinner show in a slant of summer sun.
Slippery white hardboiled eggs, cool ovals.
Tart and sweet blood red beets, steaming with heat.
Vidalia onion, paper-thin and weeping.
Dark green beans make castanets of teeth.
The little new potatoes boiled in their skins,
creamy red and white, partnering the eggs.
Tomatoes, sliced and salted, share top billing
with the tuna, now draining juice and waiting
for crisp romaine to lie down on the big white platter.
Lights up and all the characters leave their bowls
to make a ring for the tuna to sit inside.
The ringmaster trumpets: Ta Da! Salade Nicoise.
Applause, bows, goodbye.

Always had a taste for dark
chocolate the bittersweet
tongue melting treat
For the ache behind the joy
For hard things, for boys
Coffee came later
black espresso no sweetness
just edge and energy

As I've aged an affinity
with ruins has grown
Stopping by old doorsteps
worn down by footsteps
Stone foundations filled with trees
and rusted chimneys
Ghost haunted bones
of human abode

And yes I've come to love
the tulip past its prime
Curving low with blowsy petals
And the late quartets of Beethoven
A dissonance that pierces me
with unexpected poignancy
A voice I know on the radio
dead so long ago

Silver fox with your books
and your heartbreak
for the plane you never flew
The beautiful bones of your hands and face
fascinate as flesh begins to wear
To lean into the earth like all ruins
Like all sunset suns
exploding out of sky at night-fall
flying into dark