Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

Here, she said,
and held out the box of syllables
because good girls like us
bring hostess gifts
when we visit.
She emptied the whole box
onto my sunny kitchen table.

haiku tumble out,
start counting the tomatoes
fresh from the garden

She smiles, stirs them with a finger,
says, Go on, live a little.
They scatter, to see
what they can make of themselves
leaving dusty little footprints
fragile as moth wings
as they stop counting steps.
Instead, with a little hop, and a
goodbye wave, they begin
tracking new lines all over
the checkered tablecloth

Cloud-covered
to hide the meteors, the
dark filled with cricket song

After enough time
even songs disappear
and it’s too early or too late
for anything except
me keeping company
with the night
while it fills up
all the jars of tomorrow

one cardinal
flies a mad dash
across the rain-soaked sky
layers himself over
the damp green trees

his body brushes
bright shouts of red
which wakes up
the whole picture

morning ladies walk
alone and serious or
in laughing bundles

a date
and not the kind that grows on trees
But
like a date,
or is it a fig
familiar and
foreign, at once—
a flavor you haven’t tasted
for a long time
but remember fondly.
So one day,
Today
strolling through the grocery
strolling through the world
you think maybe
and try one

daddy-long-legs
dew-damp, folded in the ferns
unfurls into day

lean into summer
write it a haiku each day
to
slow
down,
see,
breathe

coffee on the porch
balancing summer before
morning yoga class
**********************
kitchen calender
bends this season at the fold
into two green halves

Before there was luggage
we only kept what we could carry
in our arms
jumbled together everything
visible to the world
Then we invented luggage
Suitcases purses bags of all kinds—
messenger duffel lunch garment
velcroed and zippered tightly
wrapped, manageable though heavy
Eventually, having already invented
the wheel, we glued them
to the bottom of our baggage
Now our burdens can glide behind us
like obedient versions of puppies
and keep pace as we try
to hurry away.

Prayer flags strung
on the white barn
walls such servants
will hold with patience
all the peculiar evidence
of our desires
picture paper paint prize
holding still while we measure
what fits with the couch
or comforts the cows