lace curtains spiral patterns on the floor
mimicking breezes
sending prayers to the saints who can save her life

for RB

Paint her a saint
To stand by her side
Righteous & unafraid
A sum of all prayers
Wavering curtains
Veil the pain in her eyes

Regret forms like foam on the sea

Paint her a saint
With anchors to hold her
Tethered & grounded
Through life’s torrid swells
Teach her to weather
Storms that she runs from

Her body lists left when she sings

Paint her a saint
Covered with flowers
Vibrant & benevolent
Settle her sullied spirit
With blooming white zinnias
Wreathed and weaved into wings

She knows she’s alive when she bleeds

Brenda Warren 2017

Bittersweet regret
Remains beneath my tongue
Hiding its lashes
Fighting its voice
It hisses
It stings
And it stutters
Trying to lose its place
In this life
So far from home

Brenda Warren 2017

I’m nailed to the middle of nowhere,
a barrier to breezes.
Listen as I stretch nothingness
behind these battered eyes
beneath their lidded skin
where faltering birds perch
their silent screech
ridiculously indistinct.

Brenda Warren 2017

Whenever children laugh,
stories stir within the tiny green she bear
peeking out from the grass
at the base of the ginkgo tree.
Here, in Pandora Park.

Years past, her hard plastic body
shielded her from the onslaught
of angry green army men—
bayonets poised,
rifles aimed.
Rising up,
the she bear lumbered toward them.
She bellowed outrage as
bullets bounced off her hard plastic shell
and bayonet blades broke.
Chunks of army men litter
her hibernation’s wake.

These days, the she bear sits
camouflaged by grass,
there beneath the ginkgo tree.
Sometimes, she pictures the plastic parts of army men
bulldozed into the baseball diamond
on the other side of Riley Creek.

Those were the days.

Wistful, the she bear waits.

Then, as spring’s first butterflies flutter,
and turtles rise from the muck of Riley Creek,
a child’s hand surrounds the she bear
and whispers fill her ears.

Laughter bubbles through promises
the child can’t wait to keep.
They arrive at Barbie’s Dream House
just in time for tea.

Brenda Warren 2017

A flattened brown tabby marks the parking turnout
near the nature preserve, where morning’s breeze
animates wisps of hair across its lifeless form.

I park V Otis Walter* as a kettle of turkey vultures
considers that recently smacked down cat,
circling blackness,
red heads tilting to meet my eye.

One, two, three of them land.

Commencing this feline feast,
the largest vulture hisses,then rips
into the belly of the road killed beast.
The other two dance,
leg-to-leg,wings spread wide,
while the kettle circles.
Red heads tilting, they hiss messages
like tears through heavy fabric
swaddling the dead,
dressing them for the belly of hell.

Brenda Warren 2017

*V Otis Walter is my trusty Volvo wagon.