ArsonDawn cracks open the world,forcing its upper windows ajar.Letting the first spark oflight into the darkness.Dawn takes darkness for granted.Takes her job of breaking night for granted.Dawn is careless, heedless ofhow brightly she burns.She doesn’t concern herself with the flammability of daylight.She wants only to extinguish the stars. Published on The Laundry Line, 15 April, …
Author Archives: lara
Prayer for an August Morning
I, unaccountably, love vultures.Shy and overly friendly,they’ll carefully pluck the buttons from your shirt.No really, it happened to me.Well, it was only one button.Gaining a vulture’s trust takes time.In the heat of a late August morningtry a hose that sprays cool waterunder their wings and across their heavy chests.Afterwards, glistening wings held wide,the vulture will …
Bees
Beesin the early fallwhile the bees clean house,I conjure a moon thattastes of fireweed honey,sweet on the tongueand slow on the fingers,it climbs high behindthe hickory tree and hangs in the topmost branches. Published on The Laundry Line, April 1, 2025
Supplication
SupplicationWe need a patron saint for the banana boxes that they pack your groceries in down at Costco,… for boys in backwards ball caps,… for velcro shoes and old men with wraparound sunglasses.We need a patron saint for poets the ones without faith and the ones with scars from teenage acne, … for body oil, …
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh A creased wedding photograph of a woman.A Mass Card when she passes.The facts of her lifesupport no further conclusions.About the necessity of ambulances.The man who held her in his childish embrace.She is the silence that avalanches down toa mute son with too many mothers.Not enough uncles to help put the pigs backinto the sties. …