After picking herbs,
She muddles the mint
or basil depending
on what’s to follow.
She bruises the leaves
like an abusive lover
into an intimacy
he can swallow.
After all,
what is allowed
is tolerated—
no matter
the consequence,
of some god’s rage.
Category: forgiveness
-
he shifted to the third person
someone outside his skin
someone easier to understand
someone easier to forgive
somewhere easier to hide
he felt under interrogationfor years answers formed easily
short sentences small words
now the simple questionswere grey nuanced and difficult
set with slow traps and baited
with articulate parenthesis
now he was no longer firstnow he had someone to blame
(February 5, 2026)
-
My father’s ghost has returned
to haunt me after decades
of silence. I only knew
his decline; now, I’m learning
my own, a slow remembrance.
I’m no Hamlet; to avengehis death, I would kill myself,
there would not be a question.
Telling that story once more,
I am what remains of him.
At night looking for water,not as broken as he was,
I see him in the mirror,
frowning at me from the side.
My body reflects his own.
My mom used him as a threateven after he was gone:
If you could be half the man
he was…if he could see you…
what do you think he would say?
She has been gone for years now,
while he hangs on the edges
darkly brooding as in life,
a storm always eminent,
on the verge of violence.
I saw my future at eight,and a clearer past today:
his presence was an absence
always nearby, yet distant
like a shadow on water.
(November 16, 2025)
-
O the hell
we must breathe
with the dust
of redemption
as our ghosts whisper
— revising our past —
our skin glows
with angelic sweat
like saints gilded
in gold leaf
over brick arches
in byzantine cathedrals
all these obligations
we must attend to
as the day descends
and night grows
from shadow
nearby
(September 19, 2025)
-
“We must ask grace from ourselves.
Our memories.
Let them
release us from the past.”
—Diane Wakoski
I call them forth
to excuse the present:
the responsibility lies
somewhere else,
in someone else
no longer me.
I don’t want to bethat, so I change,
take a step to the side,
and feel them slip past,
like ghosts, or smoke,
unmolested by time.
Then finally, so much,which does not matter,
falls away quietly
like a cicada’s
dry carapace
at summer’s end.
(July 4, 2025)
-
“Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone.
“wineing the ghosts of yester year.”
—Ezra Pound
Last night conversation flowed
freely between wit and wisdom
as easily as comfortable privilege
protects the occasional faux pas.
What wisdom lacks is the bitterness
left with the dregs at the bottle’s end.
Alone this morning, I slowly collect
the mostly empty bottles scattered
about the house like an archeologist
sifting for hints of a civilization
in the shards of broken pottery.
I wash the dishes, slipping my hand
over the soapy crystal, careful not
to shatter the glass against the sink.
Last night’s Malbec has turned slightly.
I pour a glass, and sip a bit anyway.
Skoal! I am the only one still here.
I swirl the glass ruefully, as ghosts rise
from memory to confirm my sour mood.
Memory, after all, can only reflect
the present. Like the glass, it distorts
any clarity dispersed, any veritas
the wine might once have whispered
like a former lover years after the affair:
a version of reality dependent on what
had been said, and how much confirms
what was suspected, and how much must
be forgotten as a form of forgiveness.
(May 26, 2024)
-
stale whispers and innuendo
along the margins of a wind
have risen again from the dead
hinting a time of judgement
is at hand— a time of resentment
and retribution festers anew
what is the opposite of judgement
acceptance forgiveness mercy
mercy has long fallen awaylost somewhere unnoticed
while despair exhausted clings
without solace to strands of hope
that drift listless and tattered
like cottonwood fluff through the air
(March 20, 2024) -
the daily maintenance is neglected
until it is forgotten and the hinge
rusts upon the gate no one uses
the yard’s overgrown with winter grassand must be mowed for the wild flowers
to grow into their spring explosions
the future’s distance vanishesquickly replaced with another
like tangled weeds in a garden
while close by yesterdays cling tightly
like ill-fitting clothes and what is forgotten
is never enough for forgiveness
(February 27, 2024)
-
If I confess
is guilt excised—
must I listin detail
each transgressionby name,
or may Ivaguely hint
towardan absolution
that I canaccept
as myown?
(November 18, 2023)
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