Indemnity
Mudslides aren’t covered.
Nor jewelry over fifteen-hundred dollars
unless you have a rider.
A live tree taken down by a storm
and falling through your master bedroom?
Covered. But a dead one?
Poets Respond
Hello, I Am Not a Soldier
And yet I wear caution like a uniform
now, pulling myself into its rough sleeves
and old boots each morning
before I even think of coffee or how
Haiku [it’s all over]
As one who often writes haiku, it’s always a challenge to distill moments to its essence. When I was sitting with my thoughts, I heard sirens off in the distance, which captured the sense I had of melancholy, anxiety, and unknown dangers on the horizon.
Election
On plywood walling off a stalled construction
site someone had scrawled: WHAT’S IT ALL WORTH
WITHOUT AN OPEN FREE AND FAIR ELECTION?
Holding Vigil
My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
Haiku [his shadow]
Most of the poetry I read goes over my head, but haiku is something that tends to stick with me. The compactness of a haiku fits my attention span nicely, though the good ones have an impact much larger than their words. This poem resulted from that day’s #haikuhorrorprompt prompt on Twitter, which was “kerosene.”