GETTING COFFEE AFTER THE VIEWING
Rush hour on Main Street and the sound
of traffic
is the sound of disappearing.
The heaviness of Winter
pushing toward Spring.
The well-meaning rain
here again. Today,
I touched my mother’s hair
for the last time. How I wish I knew
what came next.
The sky suddenly gone pale
into pale gone. I am
wearing a black dress
that was someone else’s black dress
before it was mine.
Two in the afternoon
and I am full of everything I never said.
I look for my face in the reflection
of a passing window. Yes,
I am still here
walking downtown
as the pigeons on the fire escape
preen their soft feathers
and the rain, capable of stopping
nothing,
falls into my hair.
ALONE
Winter’s bigness pushes against the house.
My love for tea and quilts will not warm.
December, and everything is melting
into a bigger threat. Frost climbing
the windows. Bare distance of wind.
Lawns gone stiff with the dignity
of fresh snow. Too much time and distance
has gathered to loosen this dark.
I could drown in this cold.
Pipes whispering against the walls.
The faucet drips. Sunday,
and it feels like something is coming
to an end. I step outside to watch the moon
shrink the higher it goes.
So plain. So simple. A moment made
of small light. Small flakes
that accumulate into something bigger.
Strange silhouettes. Stranger shadows.
GETTING THERE
When there is nothing more
to gather,
I leave town.
Wildflowers thumbing along
the highway’s side.
Weeds gone wild
on a two lane road.
A lone sparrow
pinnacled in mid-flight.
Delicate wings.
Gentle things.
I turn the radio off
and try to remember
the sound of your voice,
soft as a scarf
blowing in wind.
Some nights I wake
and think about
all the people who love
and move
beneath different roofs.
Where did you go?
I am slow to recall
how easy the heart
of a yard
can grow soft and green
again
come Spring. Further out,
a field of wind turbines
work the air,
quick moments measured
by empty space,
half-ton blades turning
into a continuous fall.
THIS LIFE
This morning I eat breakfast at the kitchen table,
a place I rarely sit,
and think of nothing.
Purple jelly marooned on a white napkin.
Crumbs gathering like sand. Coffee gone cold.
Face down on the counter is a book
about a famous woman’s extraordinary life
that failed to hold my attention,
as extraordinary things often do.
Today, the trees look the same as they did yesterday
and nothing pleases me more
than this small square of light
beaming through the open window at my feet.
A moving pattern of back lit leaves dancing
in a way that is never quite the same,
as each moment is never quite the same—
ordinary in its splendor
and completely mine.
Kristene Kaye Brown is a mental health social worker. She earned her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been featured on NPR and published most recently in New South, Nimrod, Ploughshares, Salt Hill, and others. She lives and works in Kansas City.
Photo by pstenzel71 on Foter.com