Sunbathing

Her hair trails down the back of the lawn chair,
Thick red tendrils
Stretching to meet the ground. 

The screen door bangs shut.
Her sister’s seven-year-old gait
Rattles the front porch slats,
Announcing her presence.
She sighs, pushes her sunglasses further up her nose.

She chomps at her gum in annoyance
But bites her tongue instead.
She rolls the gum across the roof of her mouth
To distract from the pain.
She presses her tongue into its rubbery flesh,
Smoothing its ridged surface
Like a smeared fingerprint on a store window
Or a nose print that sits above a circle of pressed lips.

Her tongue reaches up again,
Rolls the gum forward, past her teeth
Launching it in a high arc.
It glistens against the sky,
Lands where the sidewalk curves.
Embracing the concrete,
It waits to greet the sole of her sisters
Sneaker, when she runs to gather the mail.

Poetry Hides

in the corner shadows of a horse's stall,
the bright scales and slime of a cut throat trout,
the white paint borders of a soccer field,

in fragments of dreams
and white bowls of green grapes,

in jeans rolled up, cuffs heavy with salt water and sand,
the shouts and whispers that dance around a campfire,
the silver chill of a pre-dawn sky,
a frost covered sleeping bag,

in catching fireflies,
a fiery moonrise over the lake,
the coffee and garbage smell of a monday morning,

in a dangling lightbulb,
a cold kitchen floor,
steam rising to meet the hovering shadows,

in the opening scenes of horror films
and unscripted break ups,

in the bins of vinyl resting on the rough floors of record shops,
the ones with stray nails that will rip your jeans if you sit down to dig in,

in the spiraling smoke of incense
the rising of dumplings
and too sweet cake batter,

in the paper clip i picked up off the kindergarten floor
and twisted beyond recognition,

in the spin of the fan hovering over my bed,
the black hole of glow in the dark stickers,
the music box tinkling "Puff the Magic Dragon"
dissolving my adolescent angst,

in well worn yoga mats and pots of chili,
bus rides through the mountains and snowy summer mornings,

in coats abandoned and adopted at the train station
with old tissues puffing out the pockets.

                                                JM, October 24, 2010
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Just some thoughts I might share with my classes.  We all need to know where to look for poetry, especially when the big concepts want to trick us into trite middle school verse.