Jackie realized it had been a while since she looked Anna in the eyes. She’d been working, scouring the restaurant. Purposely sitting in direct view of the entrance, watching who walked in and out of those doors. She eyed the hostess as she walked across the marbled dining room floor with a couple following behind her. She led them over to a two-person table nestled beside a wall where water cascaded down onto a row of glossy rocks. What a fluke Jackie thought; she knew the man. Not his name of course. She never bothered with names. But she could recognize his thick, peculiar widow’s peak anywhere. 

Jackie turned to her plate, took the last bite of her salad, and peered up at Anna, who was blabbing up a storm about her third divorce. Groaning silently, Jackie nodded her head, faking concern and caring less. It seemed Anna couldn’t help but confide in Jackie all the personal details of the men she married. Jackie always wondered why her? Sure, she was the only child her mother ever had, but why disclose the intimate details of her relationships to her daughter? She hated it now and she especially hated it back then when her mother trapped her at Madison Avenue restaurants like this and blabbed on about her father. 

 “Your father is a handsome man,” Anna would say, but he never supports me, and he doesn’t appreciate me, and now it’s too late.” Then she’d run her stringy fingers through the front parts of her sandy bleached hair, her lips all pursed, her eyes adrift and dark like the shadowed bends of a river. Now here she was, again, the third time in sixteen-years swallowed up in an unruly swirl of self-pity, carrying on about another incompetent husband.
The waiter returned with two martinis and placed them down in front of Jackie and her mother. “Henry just doesn’t get me,” Anna carried on, slurping the top of her glass as elegantly as a lady could. Jackie reached for hers and took a big gulp, the vodka burning the back of her throat, her eyes watering like they always did when drinking martinis with her mother. She didn’t even like martinis. Definitely not wine. The vodka was okay, but she preferred a Cosmo, something with a splash of juice or soda. “You know he didn’t even come home last week,” Anna said. 

The man with the widow’s peak closed the menu and placed it down on the table, amused with something his lady-friend said, when he happened to catch Jackie in the corner of his eye. He did a double take, squinting suspiciously, wondering how he knew her. He was certain he didknow her. Her face was familiar, but something about her was off. He couldn’t place her. He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the lady across from him. 

Continue reading ➞ HONEY, Published by “Honey Suckle Magazine” 2/19/17

The plan was to find out why this Birdie girl wandered around our rooms, stealing our things. Living in a dorm with over sixty of us, we’d all roam in and out of each other’s closets from time to time, borrowing clothes, flat irons, hair dryers, and stuff like that. But from what I could tell, Birdie was the only one who strolled around our quarters, pocketing Q-tips and razors, deodorant and dental floss. And no one had a clue why.
         

The girls on the floor left it up to me to investigate the “Birdie situation.” I’d been known to not give a rat’s ass about poking my nose in other people’s business. It was true of course, but to my defense, I’d only get involved if it meant I could help someone. Like the time I’d spent a week spying on Jamie’s boyfriend Kurt because she’d suspected he was cheating. With a camera around my neck, I followed Kurt all the way down to the west wing of the theatre. While hiding in a groove in the hallway, I watched him walk straight into one of the back rooms. Minutes later, Chelsea, not Jamie, walked in after him. The next day, anticipating 9:00pm being their usual meet up time, I hid under the desk in the same room they’d met in the night before. Needless to say, I caught the whole thing on film and went straight to the darkroom to develop the pictures. A day later, I presented my proof to Jamie. 

Continue reading ➞ Birdie, Published by “Breadcrumbs Magazine” 1/8/16

The entire city must be well fed
fast asleep on foot with eyes open
or listening to a drum beat from mars,
or living in an imaginary town where
“I” is in too frequent of use,
or maybe their silk is so fine
they think it turned them invisible —
even from behind the wheel.

The thing is
at times, I forget who I am

and that’s because you make me want to
whack my shoulder into yours while passing,
or dive through an open door that closes in your face,
or smash my car into the rear of yours because
you cut me off and I had to swerve into the other lane.

Continue reading ➞ Go Back to the Woods, Published by “Breadcrumbs Magazine” 1/8/16

grass rises from under the earth,
leaves bloom at the base of flowers,
trees burst greenly beneath a blue powder fog at dawn
where people wake softened by the echoes of chirps,
by the stream of light burning inside as deeply as coal

but first we must bear the violent blow of hail and frost,
the feast of rain and slush
reaching far into the crevices in rocks

not even the smallest finger
can graze those cracks and spaces

winter alone will fill those gaps,
flush out the debris,
melt it all the way to the root,
and only then –
like an elastic coil wire when stretched –
will spring return to shape.

Published February 22, 2015 by Women Around Town 

When I look
beyond the dusty brush
and see a red branch shining
through a meadow of green,
or stumble upon a path
of tulips bending through
a rush of water, or struck
by an orange moon that must have wings
it flew so close–
like a spring spilling over
a terrace of rocks, I drift to you.

From beneath
the spit and drizzled sky
violet sea waves
froth and spray,
sandbars emerge along-shore
where a field of flowers tinsel
in the dusk like a cave of glowing worms,
and everything of beauty in this world,
I am yours.

Now, pay attention.
There’s something you must know:

Continue reading ➞ If You Love ME, Published by “Women Around Town” 1/11/15

Night hawks
and listless hours,
the flush of warmth
to flesh of petals
turns stale and crumble.

This year is no
different than others.
The sun passes
over the equator,
a copper button slips
through a slit.

A ring of light surrounds
half the earth, a mouth of
darkness closes on the other.

Published November 30th, 2014 by Women Around Town

I

I wake mid sleep from the soft slap of your hand.
Draped beads clack against the closet door as the waves
from the sound machine crash against
the water  and I wonder about
that day I cut opened my chest
and placed my heart in your hands.

Can I trust you to cradle
it in your fingers,
mindful of not letting it fall?

And, if it did accidently
slip through the empty spaces
would you dive to catch it before
it splatters onto the ground?

I fall back asleep and dream we are blankets swimming
towards our rowboat. Paddles meet, a spark like your touch,
and we shoot from the root of spring and green shines
through the water.

Continue reading ➞ Broken Places, Published by “Women Around Town” 10/5/14