I Do Not Spend a Lot of Time Thinking from The Apple Valley Review:

I do not spend a lot of time thinking
what would happen
if something happened to my mother.

She is practical and careful, eats to maintain
her 108 pounds, has lived in
Oklahoma and San Francisco,
was robbed once while she slept (at least the thief
couldn’t take her water bed), was kicked off
an Indian reservation for pissing off
a princess, had to lodge with nuns. … more

~

At 70 in the Apple Valley Review:

I will be a stout and blissful seventy,
with a stomach like a cushion
for my breasts, sturdy legs to walk me
round the zoo,

with a dotted hand on a
doting man for support.  He
will make me laugh across tables
in posh restaurants, accompany me

to cinemas, introduce me
to mountains, watch with me retreating snow
reveal mirrors, and listen to birds
dislodging shards of song from their throats. … more

*
I Couldn’t Print This at Work in Conte: A Journal of Narrative Poetry:

i.
finally, a lovely day today

I know because I saw it
out the window

Finally a lovely day today
You called your old assistant.

I feel cheated on.

is it not enough to be penned in
here with you, your name a cookie-cutter
for my voice, my fingers dispensing
your words? and after all, she left

but of course she’ll meet you
for a drink and a free ticket to the theater

Friday, expense day, I’ll have to handle
the receipt …  more