White Dress on a Clothesline

who has left this delicate cotton cloth

handsewn with care

to fit a young girl’s shape

with its small white buttons

its white lace collar

pinned at the shoulders

on this worn clothesline

behind this empty farmhouse?

the cloth is thin

and made for dense summer days

when this tree above

would have been fertile green

when there would have been

birds singing

a song for rising

a song for resting

a song by which to wander

a song to call the children home

more empty than the broken chairs

on the collapsing porch

this abandoned house

will soon be embraced by wild

come to claim, consume, console -

one day, it will call this cotton dress

with its blue satin ribbon about the waist

to rejoin the brown earth

this empty white dress

uplifted and released

ascending and descending

in the chilly breeze

Poem "White Dress on a Clothesline" published in Writing In A Woman's Voice, April 30th, 2022. Winner of the 95th Moon Prize. https://writinginawomansvoice.blogspot.com/2022/04/blog-post_30.html

 in the house of the mind

its windows of desire

poppy-lipped

its ceiling fans spinning

its kitchen timers unwinding

its intricate hallways painted with a lifetime of faces

here, clouds and sparrows drift in the attic

the widow’s walk looks out

upon a departing sea

something courageous puffs and hopes

in the chimney

something ecstatic sings in the wires

something in the shadows

beneath the stairs

offers a trembling answer

it holds the key

it holds the feather

it speaks in tongues

 I understand

I do

you are not the only one

who sometimes feels like a frightened child

afraid of an erratic balloon 

filled with angry exhalations

the shadow of birds

swooping too close

a zigzagging kite

controlled by the wind’s demands

a cloud that suddenly covers the sun

threatening a storm

it was a necessary habit

formed too early on

now, useless time spent

worried about ghosts that vanish into nothing

~Published in First Literary Review-East