Dragonfly, Dragonfly

eleven very short poems

Photo by sk on Unsplash

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Days after the baby
birds have flown away,
their hatched eggs
are overrun by ants.


All my dead dogs
haunt me. I hear
their toenails clatter
against the floor
as they scramble
through my memory.


I didn't learn to cook
as a child because
we were poor and all
the food was canned—
but I knew how to boil
so I boiled inside out.


Love itself isn't rare
but our caretaking 
of love is haphazard
and too often spare.


A memory of the clothesline
where my t-shirts dried
into the shape of an Indian boy
straining against the pins
that he wanted to escape. 


He fell in love
with the wrong twin
and doubled
his venial sins.


At midnight, I see
that I've forgotten 
to close the blinds
so the morning light
is sure to wake me
too early. I could change
this future—I dread
what dawn will bring—
but I'm far too tired
to get out of bed.


God's love for the atheist
goes unrequited.
That possibility 
scares me a bit.
So maybe I should call
myself undecided.


In Seattle, the rain
and rain and rain.
Dear Sky, please stop
this baptism, this cleanse,
because I'd like to retain
a few layers of the pain
that makes me who I am.


That dragonfly lands
on my sister's purse.
Our dead mother
worshipped dragonflies
so we choose to believe
that she returned to us
for a few silent minutes
before she left us again.


My suitcase is too small
to fully contain
all my joys and sorrows. 
They tumble and unravel 
on every road that I travel.