Easy - slant sonnet circlet

Easy rolls me down the steps in footsprings, racing gravity.

Gravity loves me round, doughy, the sweet thing you take a bite out of.

Of all the granddaughters I am the last, knocked down, fighting lazy.

Lazy is like easy but harder, sadder. Lazy is stuck, but for grownups.

Grownups sprouting where you don't look, painting a picture.

Picture us all a bouquet, arms and waists, family is overbright.

Overbright where fading's a gentler thing, softer would feel easy.

***

Easy clouds the windows with a slow start, a rainy breakfast.

Breakfast the sharp beginning, all day the downhill chorus.

Chorus the chirpy memories swearing: it was always like this!

This is the loping way of the days. They were straight and sly.

Sly the sneaking sense now: time springs detours and do-overs.

Do-overs, dominoes, falling and rising their snaking refrains.

Refrains and endings. Falling and falling is easy.

Hot - slant sonnet circlet

Fighting the heat I am fighting my self-creature, legs brain skin.

Skin-sticky, tired, snap-ready, no body here but me to lay into.

Into the evening open-mouthed, breeze-waiting. The day my undoing.

Undoing the doing of cool unflappable me. Undoing me.

Me in pieces, in crazy, in wanting you all gone pronto.

Pronto you skitter-scatter, empty is all there is here now. Hot.

Hot room after room, me fighting me fighting me fighting.

***

Fighting the dead slow air I am breathing alone. Losing.

Losing the wait, losing my snap-together cool.

Cool is a memory gone flat, melting. Kissing what I was.

Was one piece. Was think-alone, stand-up-straight, watch out scary!

Scary the falling apart. Now alone. Empty hot cavern rooms.

Rooms for chasing the gone-away air-breeze here, there.

There is no me left. There is only the fighting.

Emilie Spencer Deer

Emilie Spencer Deer

Been chasing a ghost, diamondthroated invalid shade

Shade sheltering our tree-slung swing, grandma dead

Dead all my life, living story to story in Daddy's nights

Nights splitting their sides, grandma the jokester

Jokester rising to moments with song, pun, rhyme spun

Spun see-through silver imaginary grandma, never buried

Buried in Daddy's joy every offbeat scribe I have been.

***

Been naming, renaming the old and the yet to be.

Yet to be outshone, forgotten, you pinch-o'this-that whiz

Whiz bang grandma, golden the floating blanket

Blanket nine granddaughters, two little grandboys, grown without you

You yourself motherless, tiniest, now become ancestral lore

Lore that we spin and gather, launching our own houses

Houses to crouch in, papered in grandma-lore, all we have been. 

Where We All End Up

Place is where we all end up. Living.

Living is a motor that won't stop, won't start.

Start water, panic is a luxury, start water

Water to carry and spill, boiling and disappearing.

Disappearing sundrums splashing our boney feet.

Feet old on the ground where bricks are piling

Piling broken into the shape of this place.

***

Place becomes time if I stay still enough here.

Here I am where my feet rest on each other.

Other bedtimes collapse, other time zones gather

Gather the islands so we can hop.

Hop the stones, leap the rocks, rest in the shadows

Shadows boiling fast slow slow

Slow living. Slow stopping still. Slow building this place.

Dolores my baby girl (Daughter #9)

Dolores my baby girl, if I cradle you warm will it melt the ice?

Ice is better than sorrows your great-grandmother must have believed.

Believed like she knew that her little girl should be thin and bright

Bright radiance, reflections, sunshine melt ice too

Too much cradling warps the future before it can start

Start running now, baby bunting, start running now

Now before I can catch you and name you sorrows, Dolores.

***

Dolores a baby girl I found wrapped in confetti

Confetti that says the parade has gone noisily by

By tomorrow this child will be mine to console and treasure

Treasure's what's left when the pirates have whooped their last

Last will be first and sorrows will melt to rivers

Rivers to drown the sorrows, but not the child.

Child, child, my future, I name you sorrows, Dolores. 

Everywhere

Everywhere there are old women who used to have two sons.

Sons be tricky stretchy devils oh but look at them Be.

Be humble when the moodwind strikes you high

High step it go catch it two-fisted the updrafts cool.

Cool you can wear like a kilt till it comes unpinned

Unpinned is a wolf with a taste for heartbeats

Heartbeats my love, slowing, heartbeats everywhere.

***

Everywhere there are old women who had two sons, once.

Once they talked plain, there were dinner conversations, sober.

Sober me here, now, steady the growling forward drive.

Drive us a softer bargain, pillow the getting old.

Old women everywhere who had two sons, way back when.

When the wolfwinds howl, is that the memory rock?

Rock it back, rock it backstream, stream it everywhere.