The Loss of a Dream

Floorboards creak.

She creeps to me where I lie asleep,

tears on her cheeks, voice cracked with sleep.

"Nightmare?" I ask, sweeping the sheet...

Bathtime

Hundreds of fleeting bubbles pop

with the sweep of an arm,

the splash

of a foot.

Punctuated with little girl voices:

"Pretend we're princesses."

"Pretend we're getting married."

Mounds of luminous bubbles

pile high on their heads--

delicate, ephemeral crowns.

Hundreds of fleeting bubbles pop,

Children on the Playground

Shooting stars zipping around a plastic and metal solar system blue and green and yellow flushed with fiery exuberance...

The Feather

The feather drifted slowly

from the soaring gull

to land on dirty water

at the midnight toll.

...

White Lion

Summer's end. Golden lions grow white with age-- They will wave their offspring away And wither to a roarless death

...