Changing Places

Changing Places


he turns the door knob --
discovers she’s too ill
to awaken yet


he’ll take their daughters
to the mall for play and food --
let them find ice cream


In a later life
Mother guides his new wheel chair --
two girls skip ahead


today grandparents
on sideline bleachers --
children running free

Clearing Space at Four

Clearing Space at Four

so short my little broom
I swished from side to side
pushing pebbles on the path
passing round the bend
beyond their sight

though they feared
me lost
I sweept on and on
at sticks and dirt

beneath my pen today
thought uncoiling free

like that morning
in a darkened wood
I am never lost but
present to myself

Sheltered

Sheltered

If one memory lingered
it would be the moment
in that rental car
still
on the graveled overlook
where we slid the windows
down
wide open to the sea
breezes pushing in
to our heated space
where skin reddened in the glint
of sun
and sparks broke through
our shield
glimmered over cliffs
to shimmer in the ocean spray
unruffled by our gaze
unstoppable in our pause
in the middle of our lives
where we were
no longer looking out
but reaching
frozen, forever
eyes attending only
to the other.

Accessible

Structural bones
beneath my skin
halted early,
devious denial
prepared to complicate.

I blamed my height,
the lack of it,
for ladders, missteps,
and not being chosen.

I stretch to reach,
to peek, lean out from
behind the podium,
before I speak.

I extricate obstacles
hope you do not escape
without my image,

a remembrance
of how shortness
climbed into your view.