Shadowboxing

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In the evening, I sat out, well beyond 8:58

The front porch shadows shielded me 

That I might pretend

My bedtime hadn’t come and gone

The smile in my telephone-voice wasn’t masking a mom’s tortured heart 

Acceptance would come and those few miles away, would prove okay, someday

Hood ornaments on passing trucks did in no way devastate

This wasn’t the calm before the storm

The temperature wouldn’t dare drop, degree by degree, with each sip of my sleepy-time tea 

The gardens weren’t soon going to hell

My choice to survive hadn’t offended my God

Tomorrow, no one would know 

They

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To the squirrel who pilfered
To the rabbit who skulked
I stand by my poison pen

Gone be the peaches I nurtured since spring
Struck down, the sweat-sown echinacea

The day-long and long night, again and again
The witnesses to the crimes against friend

But rather than hate, abate, terminate

I give gratitudinous nod
To berry, bean, basil

And rose

See, me and my pen
Befriend, overcome

Thus, conquering peskiest pests

Exited

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Conclusions
Drawing them
An art that sure don’t care
An intellect? An artist?
Mess-maker? Long-jumper?
Languish in the mire, undecided

Conclusions
Feeling them
Hold an evanescent breath
Continue to stand and applaud
Hoping to prompt an encore
From a stage that’s gone dark

Clear

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Sugar, speak

Speak aloud to the ghosts
On this journey, with you from an infant thing

You know they know you
They’ll believe you

Have no fear
For it’s rest you’ll find
There
In them

And laughter, then silence
Finally

Look for me
Here
Speak

Bring us back to life

Baldpate

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Here we sit excitedly
Free cookies!
Average age of “we’ll-never-tell”
Scratching our thinning crowns
Picking crumbs out of our aged cleavage
Just happy to be together, talking too loud
For our hearing is aided, these days
History and legacy
Is key

Dame

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This eye in the sky watching
Always cheering
Chasing
Some beauty it never plans to catch
Smiles, therefore
Without any hesitancy and evidence
Of braces or trammels of old
You’ll see

Freediver

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Do I want your drink of water
Quenching my hard-earned oddities
Drowning the flame and heat of me
Dampening the hue of my hair
And this heart

Do I want your white-washing
Pretending away this good graffiti
Covering evidence of my depth
Ameliorating (ha!) my helping you see
Different is beautiful, too

Do I?