Katie on Fire

Sunset and silence,
chocolate bars and coffee—
Katie fingers rifle shells after dinner,
stacked in rows and flicked
the way a child does dominoes.
These mountains have a way
of messing with one’s marbles,
loose, scattered…sometimes spilled.

She had banked on babies,
and her husband holding still;
got busted fence instead, scattered cattle,
a cold bed. Tomorrow—
ten inches of new snow
twenty degrees, and another dog to bury.

Peach blossoms in April—
she can only dream
pounding the floorboards raw
pacing off caffeine.
Fresh butter beans, strawberries ripe
and dirt between her toes—
Oh, to smell the sun-soaked peaches,
holding hands…
to stack firewood all day
and get kissed for it.

Just a Drip

He said, if I don’t fix THE DRIP
kerPLOP!ing in the wall,
tiny blue frogs
with fluorescent toe pads
will come to live there
and their shrill, incessant trills
will drive my black kitty schizoid,
send her hair-frizzed down the alley
in the wee-est dark of night—
a satanic séance sort of scene,
enough to freak the neighbors
into invoking the Patriot Act,
storm the house and axe me to bits.

I call a plumber
and get a prophet.

Dan Bieker is a farm owner and assistant professor of Natural Sciences at Piedmont VA Community College. Black humor is a common theme in his poetry, along with occasional tidbits of social commentary.