BLUEPEPPER

Days I’m a Hard Windshield —after W.S. Merwin, Mary Chapin Carpenter I feel lucky today as though my reflection will please...

Requiem Our daily walk takes longer now. But you still insist on Passing through the cemetery With its ever growing Number ...

Dark Art There were wars and hunger abroad, misery, injustice and evil in the streets  but on the home front who could bear  ...

Especially the Girls My cousins had freckles, especially the girls. Speckled and emphasising how white their skin was. Delica...

՛ Railroad Bridge  Our shadows step out of our shoes,  consider centuries  as sun melts tar in the ties. But what is not in...

someone somewhere  It wasn't the first night a guy was yelling  loud enough to wake me as I was dreaming of someone in...

Honey-Blonde The old barber keeps a lock of honey-blonde hair in the side, buttoned pocket of his apron. Now and then, when ...

Grasshopper             I only ever ordered grasshoppers because Cynthia Northrup did.  The crème slimed my tongue with the viscous v...

Crumpled Love There are so many ways to crumple and the lines that persist when smoothed out turn to cracks, rivers when wet ...

Coming home?  This red brick-veneered low-rise terrain  of straight-jacketed yards,  hedged by swept concrete driveways  is ...

Shell(ey) I have brought for you this shell from the molluskan mortuary. Listen to it. Hearsay says you can hear might of se...

Mrs. Derment I am 82 today. While I cut the lawn, I remember Mrs. Derment, my first college landlady when she was 82. Wal...

J’accuse Sneering greasers chase Thomas in the cafeteria, he runs from laughing jocks down the hallway, between the doorway a...

Dai’s Day Dai prowls the town in deepest Western Wales, finds garrulous acquaintance, becks and nods. He buys a naughty postc...

The Cipher     Arlene Cardino lived with her mother. Before she was made a full-time cashier, she’d run the gift department, a job whic...

i tried on my father’s pants i tried toughskin and corduroy polyester chino cotton rayon i tried on my father’s pants and t...

Leaving the Parking Lot of the Comfort Food Diner, West of Vegas  Even when you don’t count highway license plates Time passes...

Ungodly Feeling We sat together under the hot Nigerian sun Drinking palm wine and smoking weed We laughed out so loud and fre...

Burn We friends have a burn party. Torch divorce papers, card statements, parking tickets, things with dark associations from last ...

When Mountains Shimmer Each summer I visit the ridge to see our abandoned mountain home, its matted grass, the white pines wr...