10 Poems of May

1. Moving Day

The day is dazzling and crackling with newness,

The newness practically tingles around the empty corners of the house,

“We’re moving today!”

My father announces in a booming voice,

I spring from my bed and crackle too,

I put on my favorite yellow shorts and my best tank with the red butterflies,

My magic wand in hand I run down the stairs,

Will I miss them?

These stairs where I learned to ride a cardboard toboggan

Where my cousins and I sit and eat popsicles after a long summer bike ride...

I run into the kitchen and smell bacon and see a box of donuts from moms favorite bakery,

She hands me paper napkins over her big round baby bump belly,

We’re moving today

I’m so excited

I’m so scared

I’m so happy

I’m so sad

I’ll have a donut and ride in the moving truck next to uncle George

He winks at me and asks if I want a baby sister or brother

I say sister, obviously and roll my eyes

My new house is waiting for me

My new castle is waiting

I wave my magic wand and the boxes unpack themselves and I wave my magic wand and the furniture places themselves I wave a magic wand and for some reason all the gown ups are very tired

We get pizza (because of my magic wand I think... only I DID NOT ask for pineapple on it!)

More boxes

My room is perfect

Yellow and happy and perfect

I love moving day

Baby is coming

The house is new

The yard is green

I like moving Day.

2. Spring Cleaning

Air out the home

Fling back the windows

Paint the door with the sign of honeycomb

Open them wide

Spring/Summer new life new eyes

Invite in a breath of change

Scrub the floors

Shine the mirrors

Cut

Into a citrus fruit

Work hard to banish the past mood

Somber winter months must be walked out

Like an overdue guest, must be given attitude

Walk outside and hail the sun

Gather branches

Walk out the ritual you’ve begun

Burn herbs

Trailing smoke

Let the ghosts be disturbed

Shake ‘em up

Settle em down

The new season is at last come to town.

3. Midnight Cake

Silent slipper walk

Quiet whisper talk

Do you think the time has come

I hope not it would be quite rum

To have to throw out the cake

Let’s just eat it each piece we’ll take

And then the treat shall be no more

For here we sit upon the kitchen floor

Telling secrets by microwave light

And fight over the last pink frosted bite

Now saying goodnight

For we’ve had our cake here in the midnight.

4. Blue Thursday

It’s a blue Thursday

A new Thursday

A day of indigo and rain

Except it’s not raining at all

The sun is up there just being a great big cheerful ball!

Doesn’t it know?

Didn’t it hear!?

I’m having a blue Thursday down in my own atmosphere!

I feel goopy and sad

I feel teary and bad

It’s a blue Thursday

I stayed in bed for what feels like the whole of May

I would like someone to make me toast

I would like someone to do the most

For me in my depressive state

I’ll be listening to blue jazz and wear a blue dress

I’ll make tea and a to do list to sort out my mess

I just need to be blue

If you feel blue you can let yourself do it too

No rush

To hush

Just be the bluest blue you need to be.

5. What coco said

Change your hair change your life

She wasn’t just speaking

In the language of fashion

Which rolled so easily from her tongue

She too

I believe

Was marking the micro shift

Which takes place in the ready heart

A heart whose soul and body has had enough

A heart whose hair shall be cut and whose dress shall be different

Because that micro shift must bleed out into action

When you’re ready to change your life

To spike a drink and do a high dive

To brush glitter across your cheeks and pack up boxes of belongings

Ready to free fall into a galaxy unknown

You will sometimes start with your hair

That’s what coco meant

Stars of change sparkle on the ends of freshly cut hair.

6. Ode to the dressing rooms in Target

I didn’t want to find myself with you today

But here I am again anyway

Caught naked in your hellish lighting

Wondering once more

Is there meaning to life?

Is this slow burning rock barely staying in orbit even real?

Then I decide I’ll live here forever

Never! Will I face those people out there

They are better off without me to stare

At so I shall sit on this round red blob bench

And they’ll call me the target wench

Much like a troll I’ll only come out from napping

Once the store closes and the lattes stop frapping

And foaming

For skinny yoga ladies roaming

The isles in their messy buns and the flannel they “just threw on in a rush”

Damnit Kelsey you know you ironed that thing for 20 minutes while waving your wand of blush

And perfectly turned out children who say things like

“Mommy this is sooo me!

I totally neeeeeed

This glitter purse to go with my mermaid vibes pleeeeeease!”

Yes the target wench waits for you to leave

And then out the target wench will creep

I’ll put all the XL items on the front of the displays

And lovingly craft baskets with checkers of blue and red

Fill them with jam jars peanut butter and a whole dang loaf of bread

Because everyone could use a pb&j

(Especially you Kelsey)

To let you know and just to say

The target wench hopes for you a really nice day.

7. May 23

Funnily enough

The body type

I find most beautiful

Which I am most attracted too

Is the body of women

Who look most like me

Hour glass waist

Round hips

Teardrop breasts

Fertility evident

And yet I cannot accept

That it looks good

On me.

8. Dawn light

I slip out of bed and open the window

Creaks

Leaks

Morning air in

I listen

Mom is in the kitchen

I suck in my tummy

And slide through the bars

Built there to keep intruders out

Africa is wild

Africa is best

My bare feet hit the dirt and run

To the pepper tree

The tree of fun

Wooden house built way up high

I climb the latter

I pitter patter

To the place

My motions slow

Here I am

The flowers though

Deep royal

Purple so perfect

I choke back tears

I sit still

Watching

As one by one

The morning glories open

And then

Movement

To my right

I cannot believe my luck

A dove

On her nest

Eyes me as still as I am

Eyeing her

She sits on her eggs

I back away

Not wishing to frighten

One two three

Back down the tree

Across the yard

Through the bars

Into bed

Triumphant in my head

Is the magic I had seen

No one else

Just for me

Mama calls me to breakfast

I giggle and go.

9. Soul

This idea

That we are not just handed

A soul

In the beginning

When our tiny selves form

In the womb of our mother

This idea that the soul

Is in fact of our own making

That we create our souls

By the spirituality of our day to day lives

By the rights and wrongs we choose

To sew upon our standards

To wave over the battlefield of our lives

This idea is a revolution

In my mind

My soul is not a fixed thing

My soul is my magnum opus.

10. Witchezzz

(Chicken photoshoot)

Howling at first sight

We meet in joyous squiggles

Sister had a true dream

A witches fizzle

And cackle of blue tones

Halving grapes in two

Tossing to the chickens

Hesitant and lady like cluckers

Wild eyed dogs

One to ten

And click then!

Moments captured

For our daughters

To see

Their mamas took the time

To just be

To be together

To be happy

To be wild and free

Now calm

Sun has set

The scent of herbs

Rose and almond sweet oil

Lavender and steaming water

She mixes sugar and spice

To scrub the week away

Peace and lowing music

My mind swirls in slow twirls

I can feel myself coming undone

Our rightful madness returning

When responsibilities shed

Like snake skins we

Drop

Out

Into the weekend

The summer nights

The travel plans

The sisterhood

The tribe

Catches us always.