My Publications

Behold, your King is coming to you;

He is just and having salvation, lowly

and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal

of a donkey—Zechariah 9:9

Little donkey of Bethany, foretold

in holy writ, you were born for this

moment. Tell me, do you feel His sobs

as you plod toward Jerusalem? Do you

tear, too? Are you aware of the drag

of His body, as the path grows steeper,

more treacherous, the rocks cutting

into your tender feet? Do you struggle

to stay close behind your mother, fearful

of a misstep, anxious over the mob’s pushing

and shoving and invading your space,

their clamor reverberating across the mountain

with a pitch and fever to awaken the dead?

Do you feel the breeze from the palm fronds?

An occasional sting on your youthful skin?

Are you smitten with the children, suffering

them near you, their evergreens and voices,

sweet, strewn along the path. Hosanna,

Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest.

Surely, little beast of burden, your legs tremble

and your heart quivers—for upon the back

of the One you carry will soon rest the weight

of the world. Upon His back, the wrath of God.

Published:  Reformed Journal, 2022

Valentine’s Day, 2024

Wen we are eighty, we will watch Gunsmoke together
for the first time, you falling in love with Miss Kitty

for the thousandth time, I fooling around with Festus’
poetic language. I will finally ignore your knee-length

white socks, and you will allow me a house fully lighted,
split the air with your handwritten poem, promise crammed and

full of passion, like you did when you were twenty, and then
you will place it in a box numbered 173, purchased

at an antique shop when we were fifty, to allow me to retrieve
that long-expected valentine from the post office number of my childhood.

I could have friends deliver long-stem roses
every half hour throughout the day like I did when we celebrated

your forty, but then again, maybe not—in ten years, it could be
as difficult for us to find friends as it was for Abraham to find

ten righteous men in Sodom. Perhaps we will float down
the crystal-clear Ichetucknee in summer in our battery-heated

black vests after we have struggled down the embankment
and onto the float, laughing maniacally like we did when

we discovered the icy springs at thirty. We will play footsies
with the fish, holding fast to each other as if our lives depend upon it.

Published: Susurrus, 2024

Take it to the limit, one more time. ―The Eagles

She taught me to rumba, to pick a partner from the crowd,
to coax him to the floor, to move carefree and wild, like water
on a hot griddle, laughing all the while. She taught me to show up

and show off. To star. (Even in family photographs, she stood out,
her dark corkscrew curls, her big brown eyes, playful, inviting,
her charisma coloring the card stock.) She taught me big. Big

hair, big ideas, big heart. To climb into bed with the dying,
to stroke their faces, to caress with kisses even when the verdict
is out on the disease’s power to transmit. She taught me to fancy

mustard greens and collards and Krispy Kreme and Diet Coke.
To believe in yourself when, like an exploding soda can,
the world spits and spews no, can’t, impossible, it won’t happen

and then to watch the miracle manifest itself a thousand times
in a tiny village in Africa or in the heart of a special needs
teenage son. She taught me to borrow your sister’s panties

and to suffer the consequences. To croon Patsy Cline and to record
yourself in make-shift studio or at Six Flags. To commune with
The Creator on the beach when life barrels toward you,

the container heavy with loss and grief. She taught me to care and care
and then to care a little more. Because loss had opened her to love.

Published: Heart of Flesh, 2021