Early Morning Coffee

The morning comes earlier than coffee
Which doesn’t usually stop me
So much as it throws me for a loop
As I try to count each scoop
And figure out the “brew now” button.

The coffee comes earlier than the mourning
On those days when it’s adorning
My work shirts.

Some mornings, I’m simply confused
When I look at you mean
With the lack of abused
Caffeine.

Sweaty legs

My legs are too hot to write tonight
Not that they’re the ones who’d write to sight
What you’re reading, but they’re gaining stick from sweat
Building underneath this laptop I set
Down on my lap to write
About sweaty legs tonight.

Pink Skin

Pink skin,
Warm to the touch,
Asks me if I’d like to wear sun screen.
“No.” I say, freckling in between
open spaces filled with such
pink skin.

Basil

Tinfoil cup of dirt dried out.
Tried out growing my own seeds
But my basil days’ll be unwound
Unless I go for store-bought ground
And store-bought plants that might
grow on up without a fight.

Trees In

Suspended in time like an icicle doomed
Inside my garage lives my bicycle tombed
Calmly waiting for his resurrection,
Wanting abuse instead of protection.

We should weave through on single track trails
Instead of lacking luster with dust or entrails
Of those caught in the arachnid’s weave,
Spun out in wheeled out webs we receive

From someone that just wants to hang us out to dry,
Wait for gears to squeak, tires to sigh,
Then deflate us down to tire rot,
And tell us that our rims are shot.

It’s time to ride around the trees in
our single track trail
Let living prevail
And get dusty for the right reason.

Dinnertime Delay

Upside down trailers become forgotten
After my kids are brought in
Midstream of their playing.
Interrupted by the urgency of me saying
“It’s dinnertime.”

I forget the urgency
Of why it had to be right then.
Maybe I never knew it in the first place
Because when I trace back time
To the moment I’m

Saying “It’s dinnertime.”
I’m left with a hunger for
Giving them more
Time to play
A lengthier dinnertime delay.

Baking Bread

I ate some flour, straight up
Then I had a cup
of water, yeast and salt.
It was my wife’s fault.

The next time she told me the directions
And with a few minor corrections
I wasn’t smacking my mouth in a paste
Of floury aftertaste.
I ate bread instead.

Magnetic Letters

Movable markings are torn asunder
Unstuck and stuck on a wall of wonder
That locks-in the winter air, cooling the juice.
While outside there’s a magnetic truce
That’s being unwritten
By kids smitten
With letter groupings that show
Kid-words that grown-ups don’t know.