Promise to an Army Wife
On a route with tolls and restricted use
on private roads, and far off lands,
I promised you McIntosh, our safe haven.
I promised liberty, the eagle to represent:
triumph, humility and faith.
It doesn’t matter where I’m placed,
what topography. But, only kept
promise to always find home where Sycamore
shares your nectar tongue, your voice peached
like a southern belle. We’ll share the distance
until fifteen hours, nine hundred and forty four miles
finds our fairytale glass slipper.
Number2
Finger Prints
I have a secret kept between a 1,000 Egyptian threads,
hoisting the dirty dead with their hands,
waiting for my skin to clean and tear away.
Bruises on my thigh garter like laced ink
on the floor, cold and bare. Stripped 2-3 inches wide
around the waist, I feel like waste as wild-eyes
theorize my missing: a column in Cosmopolitan.
I am a broken beauty, components of pigments, oils,
and intestinal remains, no one remained,
no one could be identified, and no one remembered
three weeks later the things out in this world,
where most things disappear, driven into ground,
you are ground.
Family Photo Day
8:45 a.m. I'm blue printing an ensemble,
preparing to match my genetic offspring,
flattering my wife—Debora; a genus
in the rose family, I eye the pear
shape of her body, region throughout the world
and surrender to casualties.
Today my family will be frozen,
made into preserves as well as dried
for memorabilia.
With strawberry whitened teeth,
we'll fold perfection like the bath linen
expected after laundry day, that washed
away the previous night of beer, football,
and unpleasant smells, compared to skunk
spray or sewage.
Us men husked like Durian, kinged forbidden
the whole experience, partied until
my allotted funds ran out at 11:13 p.m.
I returned home as told, and my wife
she smiled with no effort satisfaction.
