​Being catholic, it feels small
Quaint and very well kept
The rule for decorations
Posted sternly
At the entrance
Which when I first
Came upon it
I took for the exit
Which is acutely ironic
Considering the utility
Of the place

The church stands next to a
Home for the aged and frail
The vulnerable who
Can easily move to the church
When it is time
Easy to imagine
A procession across the street
Without aid of a long black car
Just wheel a person from
One stage to the next

My feet sink into
The earth
It cannot be good to feel
So comfortable with cold stones
Etched names
Some a bit familiar
None of mine

There is the billboard
Which hovers too close and too big
Advertising a reminder
Of my lost virginity
To what I thought then
Was the love of my life
He said I was too smart for him
I think it had more to do with
My size than my brain
Odd, the visible beginnings and endings
In one gaze across
A landscape

Makes me not want to leave
But I must
For my stomach growls
And my heart knows
There is still more
For me to do
And more for me to love
Before I become another
Name on a stone

​Another day of swelter at the end of July
In just another midwestern city
Streets lined with the predictable pattern
Of overly large trees that provide shade
And sometimes a slight breeze that cools
A pedestrian into a believable possibility
That will not last against the grip
Of the preceding day’s realized threat to remain

One has no chance against the Heat
The sun and the air will have their way
As will our fate
For the dream of what we don’t want
Desperate to soothe us, like the breeze
Thinks the opposite of what is now the remedy
But those flimsy solutions are no cure
Eventual surrender to the umcomfortable

Is like this last line that must hang alone

​It hesitated, then slightly moved one of its crooked legs

Or whatever bug appendages are called
As if to test the air
For which direction the wind was blowing

I learned early not to like bugs so much
To believe they should not be
Wherever I chose to be
To keep them out of my natural order of things

But this bug I watched for some time
Until it moved rather quickly
And me with all my supposed power over it
Picked it up on a kleenex

I opened the front door
Walked to the edge of the stoop
Shook out that Kleenex, waited,
Watched it land, that bug, now in a ball

Does it have an innate stopwatch
That screams out, NOW!
Run! Make your getaway
Not knowing for sure who is watching or from where

I have changed its journey
Me, the compassionate articulator
Of another living thing’s existence
Leaving it to shake off my choice

Even in my supposed gentle Kleenex approach
I have determined for it a different day
Then what it first thought possible
When it put its little leg in the air
And thought itself alone in the decision
Of which way would suit it best

​Outskirts is survival

Predetermined path
No choice. Not truly
All one knows
Not indicative
Of preference
Search always
For a gate

Dont do it
Stay put
Dont do it
Stay put
Dont do it
Yes, stay put
Opportunities lost
Melted chances

Step in lethal
Possible failure
Always
They do not know the torture
Of trained periphery
Forced early
To embrace
Awfulness of self

Give
Dont take
Give
Dont take
Give
Dont even ask
To Be
The no, the risk

As it rises
The current
Its force
Against
The whisper’s nudge
Strength in weakness
Which will
Will win