What the Soapstone Carver Knows
Even mistakes can be beautiful.
The scrap of soaprock
that was supposed to be a loon
can shape shift in seconds
and become a palm-sized polar bear,
snout reaching skyward.
All it takes is the right tool:
forgiveness.
- River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the Twenty-First Century,
2015, Blue Light Press.
***
Treading Water
They say cystic fibrosis is like drowning
on the inside.
I say it’s a fat cat
asleep on your chest.
It’s a quiet pressing down,
like the snow outside:
silent,
insistent,
smothering.
You write, “I’m thinking about you,
imagining your lungs twin bellows
filled with light.”
I say they’re sputtering whoopee cushions
and the joke’s getting old.
We both agree that “Bronchi ecstasy”
sounds sexier than “Bronchiectasis.
“Deterioration of lung tissue”
isn’t sexy at all.
“Good God, I want to kiss you,” you say
as I pull my sweater off slowly
on Skype. We singe phone lines.
Sometimes the vast, black ocean
laps at my body from all sides,
laughing. They say drowning is euphoric.
You email me opera arias,
promise we’ll visit Ireland, Scotland,
Antares—the supergiant star
in the Milky Way.
I grip the phone as though it were a lifeboat.
I ride your waves, rising
to the surface.
- River of Earth and Sky: Poems for the Twenty-First Century,
2015, Blue Light Press. - Third place, 2012Â Kisses and Popsicles Spring Poetry Contest,
Pandora’s Collective.