Spring Haiku

New buds, butterflies,
and birds follow warm wild wind
I rise to greet them

Plain Crash

Cecil liked to wear stilleto heels, and skirts that flowed.
She kept her greying hair that pert shade of port,
her nails exactly 1/2" long, squared at the tips,
curved slightly downward like her mouth.
She'd take advantage of her stilleto heels
and push her grocery cart with long strides
and perfectly manicured nails past the fruits and vegetables,
past the dairy case, past the grains and dry goods,
to finally take her stand firmly between the diet coke
and the front of her cart and proceed to load it
heaven bound. . .her only offering.

Loaded, eyes glazed, saliva flaking
at the corners of her down turned mouth.
Her four inch heels would carry her
step after step through puddles of rain forest leftovers,
like a float plane landing one pontoon at a time.
on schedule she'd drift toward the checkout docking
long enough to purchase one last carton of cigarettes
She always said she planned to quit before it killed her, but
"You get such nice things with the mileage."

Fire trucks struggled to contain the flame
that was Cecelia, couch and carton,
temporarily appearing to be the hottest spot in the universe.
As the first long cough of winter
rattled upward through the smoke,
dry leaves raced through the gutter adding percussion
to the hometown blues on NPR.
Prelude for the unheard funeral dirge
that followed the smoldered carnage south.