Colored Ice
We survived on artificially flavored frozen water pops.
The colored ice melted like we did
running in orange and red rivulets down our arms and into our mouths.
Mother imagined us playing safe games
while we battled alien forces
plucking out Bobby’s braces for swords.
Knees stayed scabbed from creek bed pebbles
ground into our skinny bodies while we avoided the mermen.
Feet toughened up as the air heated and the breeze slid away to a friendlier clime.
Rollabat was a last ditch effort to postpone going home
until a ball or bat connected with someone’s head and their brains fell out.
Putting everyone back together again before heading home,
we checked each other for unexplained bits and bites marring our flesh.
One by one we faded away in the darkening sky.
Mother pulled us back with signals radioed
from her bouffant and teased up hair.
MY HIGHEST AND BEST USE IS AS A CAT CARRIER
My legs are numb and fur coats my shirt.
My arms cradle a gray puff of fluff with citrine eyes
which unfurls to feature teeth and claws
which turn into paws for making biscuits.
At night, I hold her like an infant.
Her sleep is deep and dreamless.
Later, she shares my pillow
or pushes me off after squiggling her behind into my head.
Sometimes her tiny body drapes across my right shoulder.
Every minute of interrupted sleep is worth the sound of her purr.
My work has appeared in Flying South, www.vietnamwarpoetry.com, Red Fez, Maudlin House, Deep South Magazine, the Mystery Tribune and Moonshine Review. My debut novel, Judge’s Waltz, won a Pinnacle and a Feathered Quill award.
I live in Oxford, North Carolina with my husband and a fluid number of rescue cats.
BOMBFIRE 