Corks

Parents, you can't do anything

with them, so pour your cabernet

and give your kids your corks.

Kids know what to do with corks.

They imagine them to life

as stallions, furniture or tiny ships

that sail at dawn for distant lands.

All you have is your castle.

All you can give is your blessing.

So give it to them. Smash a bottle

across the bow and retreat

to your throne and wait for word.

When word comes, it will come softly,

in a voice you almost recognize.

It will say, "We found a place

where nothing isn't treasure.

Come quickly." 

Reading Aloud

How do you convince a child

everything will be all right

when she's not your child and

you don't always know yourself?

Her father's distance hurt tonight.

She came home weeping

to the safety of her mother,

a woman you've come to love.

You find your role by feel,

seeking solace where you

found it in equivalent storms

what feels like yesterday ago.

You sit on the edge of the bed

and read for them all – the girl,

her mother, and the boy you were

and still can be at times.

This is a story about two children

split from joy who wandered

lost for years then found

their way home to love.

You even read for her father.

You read for anyone who's lost

and trying to find a way            

to their own happy ending.

Lavender Flowers

Lavender flowers

caress one another

with hands

made of bumblebees.    

At the Bar

The light refracting

off the amber shoulders

of the shelved bottles

reminded me

of family campfires

when I was small.

How I'd stray outside

the warmth of what

I knew, waiting

for familiar voices

to call me back.

Tonight I let

the whiskey burn,

a part of me still

out there in the dark.

Atonement

Atonement, reparation for an offense

or injury, is unavailable to you, brother.

You can't repay us for how it feels to finally

not care about you or the years it took to

get here. The promissory notes you issued

have depreciated into punch lines. Any more,

I can barely grunt in the flickering spaces

between your apologies. But I'm still watching,

and before you fall I want to tell you I never

liked that definition of atonement, nor the one

that calls it reconciliation of God and humanity

through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ

because I don't find his murder more vital

than his life and, looking at my children,

I don't believe we start off fallen, but rather fall

from exemplifying oneness with God -- and so

must do the patient work of first defining god

and then of finding at-one-ment with it.

Ache

I go to work

work

come home from work

missing you.