Unrequited Resolutions
If only motivation’s power was always the same
as it is during that midnight countdown.
Instead, January’s days slide away,
those broken promises tumbling in their descent.
February dawns with resolutions yet unfulfilled.
But even on winter’s chilliest days,
if you stretch toward your vows,
you can touch them with the edge of your fingertips.
From Time to Time
From time to time, she glances at the distant exit door
as her weary fingers make the repetitive stitches that dominate
her seventy-two factory hours.
From time to time, he glances at the distant trees
as his weathered hands reach toward the squash that is hidden in the earth
and his heart aches for home.
Writer’s Block
It became an undoable, laughable task
like lifting an ocean or dining on the moon.
Each day, I thought, would be The One.
But there was often somewhere to go
something to be done
OR
nothing to be done
nowhere to go. Just an inability.
Then this morning, before my piece of toast: I wrote.
The End
What did you last see, as the ending arrived:
with one eye, the asphalt? with the other, a sliver of sky?
Did you remember having your child’s hand on your cheek?
Or your mother’s warm arms around your shoulders?
You did not get to hear the word that was such a long time coming.
Guilty.
Shared Memories
It’s a simple house. The New England kind.
Blue shutters and a green door.
The yard is lit with bright trees. Snow has settled on the tips of grass.
My grandmothers worked here, my mother played here.
I only see it from the sidewalk,
but it’s touched with magic, as though their memories are mine.
American Dream
American Dream
How is one supposed to feel,
when so much is
upside
down?
My wrong is your right.
Your black is my white.
How did my hopes become your fears,
and your laughter my tears?
Yet, I trust that we all want
solace
equality
empathy
democracy.
I still believe, eternally, in the promise of our America.
2020
2020
A year like no other.
It is easy to see it as dark.
Earthquakes and windstorms.
A sea of masks.
“I can’t breathe.”
But there’s another side.
Resilience.
Innovation.
Self-examination.
What is it that we will recall, as it fades?
What will we remember in our tomorrows,
when we hold it up against the light?
The Virus
Molecules bind to receptors and trigger cascades.
Infiltrated organs fail ―
hearts with no push, kidneys with no filter, lungs unable to exchange
A person gasping for air, dying alone.
A community isolated, angry, divisive.
A society without rudder, broken in two.
A world that had the chance to unite, but couldn’t.
A small, enormous enemy.