Why I Love Polka Dots
My mother is going out.
I don’t really know what this means,
I only know that
soon I will be left behind.
But she is here now,
I am here now
and now
it is just the two of us.
I sit at the foot of the bed
she, high priestess, poses in front of the mirror.
Girdle, garters, stockings,
lipstick, rouge, hairspray, jewelry.
The bumps of the old white bedspread
press mountains and valleys
into my sunburned summer thighs
as she twirls in front of me
in her favorite dress
chocolate brown satiny silk
covered with
black velveteen polka dots
that shiver and pulse with a life
I don’t yet understand.
Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras, 2026
Family Resemblance
A steakhouse meal
slabs of beef and baked potatoes wrapped in foil—
the waitress offers butter or sour cream.
Here in the Midwest
ask for both.
You are in the car,
fine, grey ashes in a FedEx box.
Tonight we remember,
tomorrow we bury.
Women with names like Wanda
and Thelma and Annabelle
tell stories from when
you were a girl.
Surprising reminders that there
was a you long before there was a me.
“Your mom was pretty.”
“The smartest girl in the class.”
“You are so much like her.”
Lit up with pride,
I turn to see my brother
wearing a baseball cap.
Indoors. At dinner.
I tell him “take it off,”
he responds with eyes full of no.
and I think,
“oh shit.”
Now I AM my mother
trying to turn my brother
into something he isn’t.
Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras, 2026
Boca
Here we are in Boca
password nickname
for a privileged place
of wide-open blue skies and
simmering spring heat.
Not your first choice
but death forces decisions
life couldn’t face.
I’ve brought you
to the least bad.
Room for one more
behind speckled pink granite
cast bronze letters
and numbers
tell a shortened story
of your life
I call out to your father,
“I have brought your boy.”
Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras, 2026
Tasting Bourbon
I don’t drink bourbon,
but I went to a bourbon-tasting last night.
A fundraiser and I am a supporter,
at a table with three strangers around me
and four shot glasses in front of me.
Bourbon is like wine I guess,
there’s a lot to be said about it —
aroma and flavor, mouthfeel and finish.
Raising the glass, I take in that leathery aroma and stop.
Two martinis before dinner and two bourbons after.
Every
single
night.
There are many words for bourbon,
but I am left with only questions—
what did bourbon give to you
and what did it take from all of us?
Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras, 2026
London
Market
Floods of people
wade through a torrent of smells and sounds
paella, chocolate, and chips
reggae and salsa and
the din of a thousand voices
struggling to be heard.
A tsunami of bells from the deserted, fenced cathedral
that must not be deserted,
though I prefer the idea of desertion-
a tower crowded with ghostly clerics
heaving on frayed bell pulls.
Elizabethans and Georgians, Victorians and Edwardians
shoulder-to-shoulder
fighting for space
in that dusty stone belfry
sending out ancient cascades of startled joy to all of
us below
as we fight to keep our heads above water.
Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras, 2026