Poetry

Thirty miles south of Dallas the air smells of ozone and water. Thunderheads on the horizon in shades of indigo.

A finger so tender 
the diminishing coneflower’s center shocks        
a needle

up through reaching skin

I pull down my black dress 
& feed my child. 

And when the rains came 
   like lean wolves 

we were ready.

The white slap of the moon after hail gone through
ivy to silver April’s first green blades: There I listened 

Cézanne doesn’t paint what he sees.
His apples are orange.

I am more than the world you asked me to be— 

Bow to the peaches heavy and timeless, wrapped in sheets of cool.

I feel compelled to give you an ending, a promise of hope 

and all its straight-razor backroads planted with plaster 
farmhouses bowing to January’s muddy expanse