magpie's shiny things

Architecture

Architecture

We put our pasts 
in our pockets where they
rub up against loose change and ghost stories.
They mingle with the confetti of every
	laundry list,
	want ad, 
	parking ticket, and
	fable
that we have used to explain and confound our lives.
Truth rubs off and leaves formless 
tokens that we stamp with misremembered particulars 
and implausible circumstances.
Counterfeit materials to construct skeletons
on which we hang new biographies. 
Fragile bones
lying our secrets into existence.

Originally published in Loose Change, Ghost City Press, 2023

Published on The Laundry Line, 25 Feb 2025

Silhouettes


Silhouettes

The sun had just reached over the hill and
the crows were muttering their approval.

As the departing stars scavenged up the 
the birds’ black shadows,

a branch cracked under 
the weight of so many thieves. 

Like a sneeze they flew. A sneeze 
that broke my one remaining rib. That crack,

the death of all
shadows, 

then the eyes of the sun popped out.

ode to the letter b

blueberries on the vine
Photo by Élisabeth Joly on Unsplash — Photo by Élisabeth Joly on Unsplash

ode to the letter b

not the beginning
of the alpha-
	bet
but somewhere at its head.
perhaps level with the eyebrows
wild whipping
bushy blatantly untamed
eye
	brows
Einstein had nothing on the bravery of her eye brows

she blows
	batters the shutters
	we have failed to batten
down on Sunday morning
	and we return to blue
berries
piebald sheep and that
white horse with one blue eye

she is not my sister Beth
who
is also beautiful

she
	is bathed in blue starlight
believe in her gravity
	her heft
no light balloon
she sinks to the bottom of the bath
waiting for the water to cool
	 and the bubbles to subside
	back into oily scum on the surface
she doesn’t belong to me
	or you
	or the alphabet, really
she’s just there
2nd in line to the throne
while ‘A’ shines 
	her little tiara always 
	straight on her perfectly 
	shellacked bouffant
ah see ‘b’ has
	crept in even here
is there no where she cannot go
pregnant belly in front of her
she is waiting to become


Published on The Laundry Line, Tue 11 Feb, 2025

I’m sorry that…



I'm sorry that...

I ate all the marshmallows.
The cat knocked them over and there were grackles.
Timbuktu was too far away
You make lousy coffee.
There is no vaccine for that.
I don’t want to go on Tuesday.
I haven’t finished Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.
Thursdays are always bad for me; they come after Wednesdays.
Your check was late.

It's too early in the morning
	to discuss anything 
	so fraught with unexpressed meanings.

Originally published in Pittsburgh Poetry Houses.

Published on the Laundry Line, 4 Feb, 2025.

Arithematic

Arithmetic 

beside our daily lives
concrete rituals enrapture love
desires like so many Lego bricks 
erected we 
finish building our
growing collection of voodoo figurines
hapless hopeless held up by an
ignorant God without 
jokers in the tarot deck
kept semi-comatose in the
lock up behind the 
mini-mart
nobody can say who
opened the gates or who
pinned back yesterday’s
quandary
right now today
surrender to the surgeon who will
take us
under the ruinous river to
verify our
wraith full
Xanadu our ghosts who
yearn to be eaten while the
zoetrope flickers 


(From Loose Change - Ghost City Press, 2023)
Published on The Laundry Line, Tuesday Jan. 28, 2025