Frances Leaves Her Nursing Home Celebration Early     

She shakes her head at coffee, pushes away the half-eaten,

too-sweet birthday cake. Ignoring party sounds

behind her, she maneuvers through the dining-room door.

Thirty-six thousand, four hundred and twenty-five days.

She is appalled at the numbers. But who's counting?

She laughs to herself then pretends it's a cough.

She doesn't want to appear senile if anyone is watching.

How foolish people are to fear death, she thinks.

Unending life would be much worse.

The edge of her walker snags a balloon. It bursts

and she falters. Her body struggles to keep pace with

her still-sharp mind's command to move to the elevator.

In her room at last, she checks the phone. No messages.

She clicks on the TV. A bow-tied weatherman boasts

that the heat wave is setting a record--twenty-two days

over 100 degrees. She clicks him off, mutters to herself,

Only a fool would believe there's glory in big numbers.

One hundred of anything is too damn many.                            Winner of the Montgomery Award

                                                                                                                                   Published in the

                                                                                                                                   2010 Poetry Society of Texas Book of the Year

Take it Off the List

No place left on my list,

no room on my calendar.

Cancer creates its own

schedule.

I'm beginning to feel

like the man

who was tarred and feathered

and ridden out of town

on a rail.

If not for the honor,

I'd just as soon

have skipped                                     From: Sometimes You Have to Laugh...

the whole experience.                                    a poet's look at cancer

Cloud Cover

Fog clouds his mind, obscures memory

of his destination, even recognition

of the deserted street on which he finds

himself. Don't panic, he thinks. Breathe.

He puzzles at his reflection in a window.

Who is this thin, white-haired man?

And where is he? No sign of mountains,

nor smell of sea. A dull, inland place no doubt.

A van crawls by, the words painted

on its side blurred, unreadable.

Clouds drift across the setting sun.

He shivers, stumbles, cold and confused.

A bright red bird startles him, pulls his glance

to a pale line of smoke. A sign? His pace quickens.

as he follows possibility, dusk chasing his footsteps.

He turns a corner, sees a near-familiar house,

a lace of white lights defining its edges.

An elderly woman opens the door, waves him inside.

He recognizes nothing. Anxiety surges.

A shrill sound slices the air, stops

when the old woman picks up a phone.

She holds it to her ear, listens, offers it to him.

He hesitates a moment, then takes it,

as a sudden wash of clarity lifts the fog.

Tears spill down his face with the renewed awareness

that the dark cloud of forgetting will return

again and again, one day erasing all memory,

blotting out forever

the brilliant life he once lived.                   Published in the PST Book of the Year 2006  

THE RISING

Thunderous sound shocks.

Flash of light burns to dark

as I fall, deafened by screams.

Weight of strong steel crushes

like a jealous lover unwilling 

to release me.

Silence blankets my numb body.

Then feathers drift down,

brush my face,

soft hands reach through thick air, 

lift me from dying bones,

and surrounded by winged legions 

we soar to golden light.                       (First published in Poetry Society of Texas Book of the Year, 2006)