"... he knew the secrets of bees and the value of smoke,"

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Diane recommends these on line literary sites.

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Ms. Bradley

In Old Town

Sometimes she wonders
who she is
then recognizes herself
in car windows
where back streets fold
into themselves
under littered eyes
comes through
construction skeletons
arms tight against her sides
(hold me, hold me).

Only her eyes are wild.

There was a time
(how long? who knows?)
when possibilities
shot up like bottle rockets
but neurons mutinied
and she never found the exit.

So she's still looking
(forgot where it was)
better turn her around
before she reaches Arroyo Seco
and the bridge they had to fence
(high dry beautiful abyss)
just spin her into
any empty street.






Diaspora

So, busy with fearing middle age, she never noticed as old age
accelerated and blind-sided her. There she was, angsting on

cellulite while wrinkles did rabbit arithmetic, little years not quite
clearing the crevasse as grey resonated to white, and her always

three steps behind, wrestling over whether or not to Clairol.
Meanwhile, her children put on paunches and mortgages, two

and a half of their own children, an SUV and a golden retriever.
Gravity was not her friend; birthdays were black balloons. She

avoided mirrors and dined in closets, lobbed breakables at the
screen during cosmetic commercials. She bought the whole

and sold the farm, shopped in misses and rolled down her
socks. Fourteen-year-olds with spiked noses eyed her askance,

but she got the yellow two-piece anyhow and hit the beach,
cool metallic Pacific buoying her as lifeguards flickered

in their eyries, spray elemental against her lips, the Amtrack rails
glittering under the crumpled cliffs, always pointing somewhere.






Michigan Gothic

Grandad ate dump fruit,
scrutinizing the lid
as he'd finger out a peach,
then lowering the Mason jar
and wiping his hand
on bib overalls
already stiff with dirt
(might wear them out
with washing).

Cottage cheese dangled
homemade
in its mesh bag
where November winds
would soon be freezing sheets;
he knew the secrets of bees
and the value of smoke,
and how to carve stick horse heads
into whinnies.

But those eighty acres wrestled him
prone, the Model T
rusting under willows
where the outhouse had no door;
he always said that God would get him
for marrying that woman,
yet it was his own
white corpuscles that killed him,
while in his boiler room sanctum
salvaged jars still shone
gold and silver,
waiting the turn of his hand.