Category: poetry

Desert Rain

poem & photo by Elizabeth

                                                             DESERT RAIN
                                          mud seeps
                                                                    between bare toes
                                                        almost naked I walk miles
                                                                                      soaked in desert rain
                                                and catch it with my tongue

                                                                                       laughing as my mother
walks the balance beam of stone walls
                                              while her husband and I point at Catalina cows
        and shout Buffalo, buffalo! and she so nearsighted
                                                             believes us

                               spinning
                                               wrists held tight as Geno soars me
                                                                                                           round &
                                    round
                                                           parallel to the ground

                chimes        bells         ice cr
                                                                   eam delivered by truck
                                                   treasured pink          green
                                                                             yellow plastic dogs
                                                                                            birds
                                                                               tigers buried in
                                           chocolate  strawberry  vanilla to be lipped
                                                                                   licked
                               sucked away

                                                                                        curled like a sow bug
                                                                                laughing
                                                   belly aching as a finger waving in air
                                       tickles as effectively as one would
                                                                                                   touching

Thank you to the editor of Something Like Homesickness for first publishing this poem.

Gravity’s Haiku

“Gravity” ink, haiku & photo by Elizabeth

I used ink for the first time when I drew this and fell for ink’s fluidity, speed and versatility. I also used a Chinese brush and bamboo stick, so chose haiku for the words, which were for my spouse since that day was our anniversary.

Gravity
in palm's wings, spring-breath, spirals
heart-bind me and you.

Pentimento

poem & photo by Elizabeth

PENTIMENTO

How his crew cut head froze, poised above the place I could not see between my thighs, his short rodent hair arcing from my hairless mound, my mind providing the anesthesia of amnesia as if a spinal block flowed through a slender needle, numbing my body clean. And now that you’ve cut your long wheat field hair, he is the one I see near my belly, holding a switchblade against the rivulets of warmth that run from your tongue through my lips, radiating out hips thighs breasts arching back outstretched fingers. Remembering till now only my hatred of him, but as your fingers touch my inner thigh, images slice through muscle of his hand on my throat, palm in my stomach, head pressed into the opening I could not see, and I want to run from your arms which have held me warm against your chinchilla skin. As your pomegranate taste hits the back of my throat, his rancid stench catches, numbs my body clean.

Thank you to the editor of Rising to the Dawn for publishing this poem.

Attending

poem & photo by Elizabeth

ATTENDING

I saw this car's hand letter sign
in its back window yesterday:
ATTENDING CHURCH.
Funny, it appeared to be parked.
And I'm surprised this car attends 
church at all unless it's saying that
under this starlit sky
whatever/wherever we are,
we are sacred and always
attending church.

Thank you to the editor of Marin Poetry Center Anthology VI for first publishing this poem.

Night Snack

poem & photo by Elizabeth

NIGHT SNACK

Tonight we plucked that apricot moon
and ate it,
not in a gulp,
but with long laps of tongues,
carving of teeth,
squeezing nectar against palettes
till it trickled
down
our
open
throats.

Thank you to the editors Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Laurie McAndish King for first publishing this in HOT FLASHES 2.