i'll have half a diet pretzel: T-DOME Do's and T-DOME Don'ts (for mackenzie)

don't wear a shirt or shoes or have problems.

do give good directions.

don't call yourself everybody's uncle.

do wear a twenty dollar cowboy hat and a corona shirt. do sing vibrato. don't lose the keys to your big truck in tacoma.

do have this tattoo.

do bring a buddy.

don't complement your tramp stamp with a tiny leather vest.

don't get this tattoo.

do wear a belt buckle to avoid looking like you are going to a "jack johnson concert"

do let your country/ kenny flag fly. don't let your hair get in the way.

do wear purple.

don't and don't.

do get comfortable.

do get off your butt and sing along.

do stay svelte. do wear cut off sleeves. do introduce your songs with "this one is for that person in your life..."

some people make me want to puke with happiness

gah

river float happy

bah

my bedroom wall is a back drop

the boys weren't in the picture

because we didn't want them in it

for kori

I’m happy today

with poached eggs on biscuits,

saying to you: let’s do the strange

things we would never do.

Like leave the ice cream to melt

on the coffee table, travel

Spain one week with the boy

who will buy you anything,

turn down the job or kiss him

against the door frame

with the neighbors watching.

It’s partly cloudy,

yet your cheeks are flush.

Open the windows and the air  

circulates the apartment.

The walls are whistling,

and here we are again: done                                   

with sadness, our hearts rolled

out on the breakfast table, like

pie crust waitin on filling.

or maybe i'm afraid of losing what never happens

i can't think of titles for my poems anymore

In spring, the kerria ate the rose,

and bush-tits gathered upside  down

and right side up.  But I barely noticed

the gray bodies against all that yellow.

Summer has ripened and you are gone.

It is warm in the apartment

and the forgotten rose has bloomed,

is wafting through the open door.

I don’t know if it is the thought

of you, or the height of the blushing

flower, but my skin is burning,

says I want you here.

Maybe that's why I keep looking

out the window to catch the lone

yellow warbler in the kerria,

which has surrendered color. Which 

ate the rose and gave it up again.

so what if i took a lot of pictures of your dog: my friday in a nutshell

Judge is scared.

Judge discovers Royal

Judge enjoys the park

plants of the pacific

Heart pressed like a lily

in your field guide.

Queen’s cup and pink fawn lily,

blue-bead lily with a wolf’s berry.

The pricked ears of a deer

and a bitter milky taste.

I’m yellow glacier lily,

petal pressed to be permanent.