Visible

What is it like To cut the hems of jeans, To need the stool, Stand on tiptoes, Yawp loneliness across the crowded streets?

To have enough. To hunger less. Food that satisfies, Clothes that fit And are soft, Loose.

Not to push at walls, Always making room, Making more, Taking more, Taking too much.

Not bending aching bones. Being too much. Too loud. Too feeling. Too impatient. Too.

But I bump up against The ones the world was made for As a locust waiting to swarm In a glass jar of grasshoppers.

What is it like To not be noticed, To choose yellow, To flaunt red paint In a sea of bright colors, To need a star upon my belly, To live unchallenged By conviction?

Instead, my head brushes the roof. Feet hang off the bed. I walk sideways through doors, Pitch my voice low, Dress in beige, And am seen.

Drifting Mock Cable Scarf

Cast on 60 stitches with long-tail cast on. (or any structured not stretchy cast on.)

1-6: garter stitch, slip first stitch of each row

**7-16: s1, k5, *p4, k4* repeat 6 times, k6

17-26: s1, k7, *p4, k4* repeat 5 times, p4, k8

27-36: s1, k9, *p4, k4* repeat 5 times, p4, k6

37-46: s1, k5, p2, k4, *p4, k4* repeat 5 times, p2, k6**

Repeat ** until scarf is as long as you want it.

Final 6 rows (see note): garter stitch

Cast off with a long-tail bind off, (or any other structured cast off.) 

Block loosely, if desired.

Note: Count your cast off rows as part of the final 6 rows. 

Sunshine Cookies

Faded

The light spills out, warm:
a spot in darkness,
a pool of safety
gleaming bright against
the shadow-night world.

Laughter spills through
double-paned glass,
echoes of what
life could have been.

The cold wraps
around me
like a hug.

I breathe,
and then

turn.

Natural Yeast Sweet Rolls

Time: total rising time 8-10 hours, cooking time about 35 minutes

Makes: 12-13 rolls, one 9x13" pan

A Thousand

Life is a thousand needles falling,
wounding flesh.
Raining from heaven as
fiery darts,
they rend hope and shred faith.

Through days, they fall at times
hard or soft.
Never ending, they arrow to earth
in whispers,
becoming a soft pine bed of wisdom.

When it rains on a July day

When it rains on a July day,
they huddle their shoulders,
hide their children and their faces.

Focused on where they go,
they avoid where they are.

When it rains on a July day,
the air is hot and muggy,
crowding close as a subway stranger.

Filling their throats and lungs,
it pushes them to shelter.

When it rains on a July day,
I lift my eyes to the grey skies,
I take deep breaths of clean air.

The birds and I know that
when it rains on a July day,
it rains for me.