poetry

disengaging the knot

disengaging the knot

I am removing myself from the acrimonious thread
twine me instead with peaceful warp and weft
shuttle me across kind words and upright neighbors
comb the nettles from the discourse
plait our disparate views
into one woven future

poetry

Post-fire Helpfulness Spectrum: Three Case Studies

Abby Draijer-Kidder's Dutch apple pie.

Post-fire Helpfulness Spectrum: Three Case Studies

Insurance patiently yet insistently explains to my friend
how her ash-covered mattresses
(which Insurance concedes cannot be salvaged)
may not be disposed of
until Insurance has the chance to
unsuccessfully attempt to clean them,
and Insurance is all booked up
unsuccessfully attempting to clean
other ash-covered mattresses for weeks.

My bewildered but equally patient and insistent friend
explains to Insurance
that the mattresses are stinking up her house,
that Insurance is sending people to scrub her home’s air next week,
that the mattresses need to go,
that the city has invited people to put their ash-covered mattresses
out on the street this week to be hauled away for free.

Let’s do it, and save us both time and money! she pep-talks Insurance.

But Insurance rigidly Ma’ams her back
and explains how things must be:
Insurance will pay someone to pick up the ash-covered mattresses
and pay to package them to protect them from further damage
and pay to haul them to a storage locker
and pay to store them in the locker until someone is available.
Then Insurance will pay
to unsuccessfully remove the ash from the mattresses.
Insurance will then admit defeat
and pay for the mattresses to be hauled away
and will pay to dispose of the mattresses.

My out-of-patience friend sits silent on the line
nothing left to say.

On the other end of the spectrum,
Abby Draijer-Kidder bakes pies
and writes
Just come and get some pie.

Jennifer Cooper Gulley stocks her coolers
with 25 free home-cooked meals
and writes
Come and get it!

poetry

A Little Noticing

Thanksgiving: Animals

A Little Noticing

In our little yard today I spied

a red-mustached flicker
hammering away at the powerline pole
and the hole

a male house sparrow with only
half a beard
(out-of-breeding-season plumage)

two wildly different grasshoppers and

a velvet-black jumping spider
in and out of the bed.

Who knows how many other souls
I failed to find
and
what they meant to say,
blessed hearts beating
a wall away from mine
living our own loops
hiding deep in our snug holes.