For me that male gaze

lingering on nipples

prying between thighs

feels fingering inside my body—

her body on canvas.

I am unmoved by historic precedent

considering those many women stuck

as muse not painter.

I watch Morris Graves’ sharp-beaked birds

one wren whips

her head around to eye

me on this slatted bench trying not to hear

the museum amblers musing

which lunch next shop more ice cream

until chatter chatter increases

and I must fly back to the hotel.

published on the Museum of Northwest Art website, La Conner, WA September 2019

We came to Isle Ronan by boat,

thinking we had left forever the grey seals

of Aran, but their cousins sprawled on our new island’s

rocks, drying their fur in the sun. The incoming tide

pulled us through the waves

to the place where we built this cabin.

Flanked by salal and rhododendron, the cabin

grew from that one room, everything brought by boat.

We rafted the cookstove over the waves,

nearly capsized, log-rolled it up the beach. Seals

eat their fish raw, but not the Kilronans. We dug clams at low tide,

gathered wild onions in the sea grass on the far side of the island.

Why did we move out here to the island,

ferry our goods to this cabin,

live where the currents battle the tide,

where winter storms halt the weekly ferryboat?

Don’t ask me, ask those grey seals,

Rolling and diving through the waves.

I was born within sound of these waves.

Your grandfather sailed the midwife to the island.

For baptism, your grandmother held me up to the seals.

Then came your mother and we added on to the cabin.

Your Aunt Rosaleen was born on the ferryboat,

right at the change of the tide,

that’s why she was restless. The tide

pulled her as the moon pulls the waves.

Like all the Kilronans, she knew her way around a boat,

but our life was never enough for her. Though the island

was in her blood, and she loved the snug cabin,

Rosaleen had the wanderlust. But she always came back, like the seals.

All our births, and deaths, and crimes we tell the seals;

they take our sins out on the tide.

When you return, my dear, we’ll build a new cabin

for you on the rise where the waves

curve around the skerrie. Come back to the island

as soon as you can, but don’t take the ferryboat.

The tide is changing, the seals watch from the waves,

my speedboat is ready. Think of us in the cabin,

waiting for you here on the island.

published by Elohi Gadugi 2015

Knitting

making a line

into a shape

two sticks

some string

is in every culture.

Sailors knit at sea

fishers make

& mend nets

Irish mothers

knit the name

into the sweater

to identify the body.

If you don’t learn to swim

it makes the drowning faster.

published in Spillway 2017

I go to the library as a drunk to the bar

my mother used to say

and at the time I thought wit

but now I know better

for as a singular child

I drowned myself in print

and ever since

through happier times and worse

published in The Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber, May 2018

unpacking is necessary,

not starting creme fraiche in a glass jar,

setting bread to rise,

chopping cabbage for ginger orange coleslaw,

planting white lace kale in the red pots flanking the steps,

sending edits for a friend’s poem,

making a collage from old

(what other kind could there be) National Geographics,

pausing with the dog to direct strangers to the pond,

checking the parsley seedlings,

scrubbing the sink,

ordering copper and scarlet witch hazels—

none is sufficient.

Boxes must be opened & contents sorted,

cardboard flattened and driven to recycling

before it is a productive day.

published in What Rough Beast, 2020

makes little sense

will never be celebrated

included in a chapbook

or read at an open mic

but drives eating, insurance

keeping light & heat

keeping the poet.

That there are budgetary restraints

is not a fit topic for poetry—

better stick with lost love

not sound investment

reveal early neuroses and later mistakes

not how a reasonable respect for finance

makes old age bearable

and allows for quiet generosity.

published in PageBoy Magazine, 2019

As the moon eats into the sun

intellect & science insist the return

but my stardust cells, mammalian limbic,

know danger.

I float in feeling, instinct, reason,

then totality and the corona.

What bond born

among the four of us,

two poets & two scientists,

on our folding camp chairs

glasses off to see the sun’s strong rays crowning.

When the crescent comes again, increasing,

such throat joy released,

even from our two scientists,

who say they never doubted.

published in Eclectica Magazine, 2020

I believe in the safety of pencils

brevity of washcloth

sanctity of speed dial

grace of metal shed

generosity of deciduous oak

peace of wicker

flight of anchor

love of escaping steam

published in The American Journal of Poetry, 2021

I moved for peace and the red-tailed hawk circling the field

for quiet and the barred owl wooing from the big-leaf maple

for solitude and the startled doe on the trail.

Now I am unfit for freeway traffic

jostling sidewalks and broken glass

everyday car horns.

I expect conversation by the onions and cucumbers

four-part harmony on Wednesday

salutations on the green road.

I accept ferry wait lines and the sight of sharp mountains

I accept flickering lamplight under a harsh wind

I accept less of this thing and of that thing

published in Clover, 2016