amyfae

Hereford meets Springtime Hereford meets Springtime, furtively at first,   passing snowdrop-notes in the hallways, winking green and brushing shoulders with         the yellow-white-purple crocus. Full infatuation erupts in public   displays of daffodils and forsythia,          the lunch-time dramas of rainfall amidst nods and smiles from the pansies. Love takes root dandelion-deep,   despite unpredictable temperature fluctuations, and explodes in a burst of cherry-pear-plum          fairy-petal blossoms. Hereford and Springtime hold hands,   their shoes covered in mud and grass, while the lilacs awaken          and e

April Finally the lawn is dotted with violets

Cotton Balls She hides treasures in the cotton ball jar:     buttons, shells, favorite crayons, and once, the skull of a bat she found outside the garage. Mother inevitably finds them,     reaching in the jar for a fluffy squeak of cotton     to remove her nail polish. She pulls out cerulean blue or red violet,     a piece of purple quartz, and once her own emerald ring. That was the worst time,   worse even than the bat skull. Mother yelled and threatened the removal of all crayons,     shells, rocks, and grocery store machine jewelry. She tried to stop that time,        kept her hands off the jar for two whole days, b

Geometry In high school geometry, we learned          the triangle is the strongest shape,  while Melanie played the turtle, crawling about the classroom          in a shell of desk. In college, we learned human relationships are not geometry. Not all triangles are isosceles.    Fewer are right, and even fewer beds comfortably fit        three moving bodies. Now I am suspicious of all maths.   You approach, calculating one and one and one make       I count my fingers. There are one too many threes in this equation.

Solstice My baby likes a cold, chocolatety milkshake on the longest night of the year. “Mason-Dixon’s so close,” he says, incisors gleaming. My baby thinks all the pagan holidays are excuses for sex. He ignores his cell phone, leaves the lights on, and always craves fries afterwards. So my baby’s scarf-wrapped and smiling tonight, with January so far away. The fake leather booth chills his legs, but he’s dreaming about Equinox tonight.

The cookie-making impulse always strikes at night, the colder and darker the better. The scent of chocolate-chip mish-mash is irresistible, licking off the beaters, filling the house with cookie-warmth. You might be sitting on the couch, (in fact, you probably are) reading, or watching television, when it hits you upside the tastebuds: semi-sweet chocolate waiting for you, in the cabinet, behind the pots and pans, hiding from Dad. (Dad’s not supposed to have sweets; if you make the cookies, you’ll have to hide them, too, and you really ought to have made them before he got home from work.) The thought of those tiny li

She stirs the milk into her tea, dreaming of big noses and overalls, licking honey from a spoon. It’s raining again, the drops tapping out enchantments to keep the world quiet and gray. She remembers muddy feet, the warmth of hands on her back, the weight of two bodies in her bed. The fog huddles against the windows, dragon-like, and she settles herself in for another hundred years.

Little bird, you’re a god to my girl. She’s all lap and fingertips to you, a veritable human playground; she incites you and excites you, and you, full of nips and quips, comfort her dark heavy days. Comfort me, little bird, like her, if it’s so easy… It’s as good as golden apples slipping from a belt to fast-running girls.

Newspaper Clippings We are reduced to this: a newspaper clipping, a photograph, an old recipe. What lies they whisper to coffee-dampened ears. Disguised as history, hiding their half-truths in yellowed pages and brittle bits of tape. These are our lives, outlined: birth announcements to obituaries, a collection of bloodless facts.

drought We look to November rains to save us, but they only mock our fields while the banks of the reservoirs widen, earth’s own chapped lips. We are dry: dry hands, dry hair, dry eyes; we cannot afford tears this year. We cannot even sweat. Our lips like earth, we seek moments of moisture, tongue to tongue. Together we can pretend the drought has passed.