Beginning with those hedges, gnarled like her hands, / branches of veins spreading out, setting the house apart.

I used to be able to get lost in the woods / entirely dependent on my parents to find me

The Sheriff in this small southern town / Appears regularly on TV

Why would anyone buy a pair of used underwear? / I ask myself as I search through a bin / of miscellaneous clothing at Goodwill.

What happens to a voice unheard?

without caring for the actual peach / we would wait for Ma

He barged back into my life, / demanded my heart.

I find six strawberries / drowned in a blue Ikea bowl / abandoned

This morning / a praying mantis— / I call her Virgie— / climbed ...

Raindrops tinkle on the tin roof / like fingers on the ivory keys / of Grandma’s old piano.

Clouds swirl around. / Rain pounding down

We met at a summer dance, / Then she was gone.

Green is gorgeous is too soon gone, / she thought. Rockets fell toward new year’s dawn.

In the acre’s shady corner / of unremembered names

again, i was all alone / and awake / (just lying there) / when the first wave came with a strong wind