Pale Shelter

This poem is in response to a challenge to write a fictional poem about living in a fallout shelter.  Intriguing idea, so here is my poem.
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Pale Shelter

The clocks have all stopped
The batteries are dead
So the slow drip of the distiller
Keeps the time inside my head.

The feet that made the hallways
Echo from before
Are withering with lye
Behind the cold storage door.

I've got UV lamps for vitamins
And root vegetables galore
But the best of all my mem'ries
Must stay locked by the storage door.

So I sip the drips of water
And rub my muscles sore
After pedaling for some 'lectricity
I stare mutely at the door.

All a person ever needed
As well as me, myself and I.
Averting eyes from the storage room
And thoughts of who'll douse me with lye.

If Life Equals 'X' Then

At first presentation of the problem
The answer came as consensus:
The variable isn't variable at all.
The Straight white line
The cozy monotone box is right.

Now as the bedrock crumbles
And her feet must vary their standing,
We find her path awash with color
And aberrations of determination.
So then X must equal what is needed.

--
Hi all.
I have been lonely without poetry. But I'm determined to give it another go.

Desert Child, Desert Mother

Her face was lined and tired.
Not like O'Keefe, fellow-desert dweller,
Cheeks the dry earth after rain.
No, my grandmothers face is the scalloped soft sand after the caress of gentle winds.
She yanks tumble-weeds from her flowerbeds and burrs from her bicycle tires.

Sara Teasdale Spoke to Me

Sara Teasdale Spoke to Me

She said nature.

She said love.

She said pick up the damn spoon
      and stir.
Your thoughts are thick on the bottom
      of the pot.
Stop running from the emptiness.

Walk in.

Fill it.

Be.

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It's been nearly a year since I posted a poem. I don't think I've written more than three in all of 2016. It was a year of deep emotional pain, a quagmire of change I found nearly impossible to wade through. As many of you do, I'm sure, I frequently use poetry as a tool for processing such things, but I couldn't.
It was a frightening thing for me.
Last night, I was mourning a bit and I listened to a audio book of Sara Teasdale's poetry. It was so beautiful. Hearing it read was a balm to me. She gave me courage to write again.
Here is my offering.

Time Turning

Before I tasted Plath
and before Anne Sexton made forty
look like the perfect age,
there were fairies.

They hid in the grasses
and wove flowers in my hair
with their tiny wicked finger.
They pulled down clouds from the sky.

There was magic in music.
Lyrics, iridescent bubbles of thought,
forced air into my lungs
and my vision transmuted to color.

Do you remember the fairies?
They crowned me their queen.
You knelt, green, at my feet,
and I, flushed pink, kissed your brow.

Before rain streaked the horizon,
melting the snow drops,
sparklers arrived, lit and lustrous,
in the mailbox.

They turned to jewels,
dropped in my ribs' repository.
I never see them anymore.
I don't care to, but they changed me.

Returning to the fairies, however-
I can't forget the scent, then.
It trips me on a lonely sidewalk
and teases in crowded passageways.

Untitled (1975-1998)

There was a softness in the curves of your face
Nose lips chin brow
Even that impish smirk
Softened the blow of your insular soul.
Did I even know you at all?

In knew, intimately, your car's contents1993
Primus Chili Peppers Nirvana
Listened to murmurings
Against the girl attached like Velcro
To your grungeflannel shirt.

My mother's voice sounded the knell
Shot Toby dad dead 
I don't remember our last
Seeyouaroundwe'llgettogethersoon
I remember sitting by the sink, knowing this.

There are things you'll never know
Hashtags downloads smart phones
That would have made you laugh.
Such a soft laugh, that held secrets
Drawing my mouth into a smile.

Hand-quilting in America

We are linked, my sisters.
Spools of simple thread bounce down the stairs of time.
I see the tiny stitches made from that same rocking motion.
We have callouses that withstand fire.