Banishment
From the house barely,
nakedly, burningly driven
into pasture beyond—
bad daughter thrown across acres
without even her mother’s shawls
and pillows. Where to sleep where
hopping things won’t hop and nest
in her hair—why thrown out,
why not him too? All we did
was kiss—a small shallow kiss.
Now he drives by without a glance, years
of driving by, watering the field with his spit,
and she, dressed in corn husks,
arms pointing east / west for all—even the crows—
to scoff at her ragged, pathetic self.
Inconsolable
Oh my mother, I hear your dinner bell. I stand
at your door, hungry, alone, locked out and breathless
from the relentless pressure of these parentheses—