the power of 11

I can only write 11 things each month. (see side panel for cosmic reference)

I just received notice I've been published in this year's edition of the NC State's Windhover Literary Arts Magazine. It only took me six years and a few minutes of intense motivation for me to click that 'send' button.
Grab a free copy if you can (it is free).

I also got a song put on their audio CD which I shall go ahead and apologize for because a.) the song was not finished, b.) the song may never be finished, and c.) in retrospect, I should have sent nothing. I was desperate for something concrete beyond the walls of my bedroom. I don't even want to hear it. I may burn it, like in a fire, not on to a CD.

Horrible song, we shall make peace soon enough.


But here is what else found it's way to the Windhover.

-----

Why Rabbits Have Holes

They could not resuscitate Mrs. Peachtree.
“It was too late,” the paramedic said, her face
young, but drawn like the flat shade of a window blind,
her eyes down, never up, and when she walked away
her partner whispered to me that it was her first time.

The steps it took to my house around the block,
the ones I had never bothered to count; the trees,
saplings that were younger than me; the gnomes,
grimacing and waving, frozen elf hats in the headwind,
the back of my unzipped jacket ballooned like a paratrooper’s chute.

I left my window open when I sat down in my room,
And opened my notebook to an empty page;
and I could only think of:

three hundred and thirty two.

------

Denouement

You came back for your toothbrush.
Yesterday afternoon,
I told the kids next door
we were watching television.
The plates and pans you packed rang
like a sea of cymbals but softer than our voices.
Some time after the door closes,
I set the tea and light up.
Old cartoon illusions bloom of fairy godmothers
tapping their wands on our noses.
These deep breaths pollute,
orange and black like winded coals;
like our apologies, curling in the furnace.
I used to admire your gumption,
but now I’m dry, like this cough.
Still, like the volume of this idle tea.
Heavy, like the gelatinous murk; the algae at the bottom
of everything, even well meant loose change.
I am the dimming circumference.
A toke, and the smoke unfurls, vaporous opening arms,
but its charm is lost like a new moon.

You came back,
for your toothbrush.