Thinking of Queen Elizabeth While Waiting for My Son at Dance Class
The Queen’s body, enclosed in lead
and English Oak, shifts forward for six hours.
The waiting room, coffin of tired fabric,
dance moms hold up their faces, hand bone effort.
Children scurry, glass door handprints,
sippy cups on tile, they escape like squirrels.
Young mammals shimmer up oak trees
by the road, plastic saws, hammers to pretend.
Construction of her majesty’s casket lasted
decades, preparation for her death, a great British novel.
In my town, dying is about which manufactured
box is affordable.
Elizabeth, a new mother to this resting room, waits
for her Anne to twirl back with stringy bun, mended tutu.
I lose my son’s dancing shoes,
leather cracked as another theory on parenting.
History fades us, elaborate clocks
on every beige wall, so we wait.
The Solitary Mare
A shabby paint job flakes off the barn, the rust red color,
a pastoral eyesore that surrounds my reclusive habitat.
I lose my bridle, its quiet control placed among the garbage piles.
The open doors where each horse once lived smells of emptiness.
The morning sky listens with vigilance to the large pounding of my body.
I daydream about the missing, their unkempt manes, knowing eyes,
glossy with time, no longer my companions.
Grass and air, seasons roll in, this pasture is mine.
I drift along the dirty road to visit the dilapidated church.
Varied saints do laps around the graveyard to stay healthy.
They blow the white fuzz of dandelions over the gravestones.
The seeds are prayers for sinners, a clean pass to heaven,
religion caught inside each believer like a virus.
With dandelion seeds in my mouth, sharp with dull faith and secret doubts,
I position myself into the sunlight.
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