Author: Judy

Birch trees, dragonflies and fishers live
beneath the same night sky as David 
when the glass windshield in his pickup truck 
bursts forth into the grass, shining like black ice, 
like black lace, tumbling with a speed almost equal 
to the bullet that speeds through his brain, his upraised
arm dropping, not as fast, clumsy, his mouth emitting 
an exclamation, not a word, not an apology, not even 
a sob, and it could be that lizards, moles, chipmunks 
moving in thickets freeze for a moment, it could be
that the owl cocks its wing, glides back to the safety 
of a limb, the hulking blanket of night rumpled and shaken, 
small noises pierced by a sharp blast, the constellation 
of broken skull, not unknown beside the black water of the lake 
during that block of days in hunting season when orange-clad men
roam the woods and the sun shudders across the sky, 
when almost all the leaves have fallen or hang askew on twigs— 
hunters in pairs, in groups—not like David sitting alone in his truck
who swallows the quiet like a snake swallowing its prey, 
jaw unhinged, muscles contracting, mouth fully open.


The Sow's Ear Review
May 2018

Each morning they accumulate
in the belly of my stove, grey,

giving off little smoke or heat,
hiding the small, hot coals

that I use to start anew.
Each morning I kneel, peer in,

shovel out their soft bodies,
spill them into the waiting pail.

They are all that remains
of the past, of the hard logs

that I carried in, of the trees
once standing in the stand

before the growl of the chain saw
and the black truck that pulled

them clear.  I think about my children
as I carry the pail to the ditch

to spill out the ashes—their toys,
the way they made castles from clay,

the role playing card games, the nights
up late, while I lay in bed

trying to sleep.  I hardly ever see them
now, though I still have boxes labeled

with their names on the shelves.
The ashes cascade down, black clumps

among them.  Pieces that never
finished burning, that leave dark marks

when you lift them in your hands.


Cafe Review
Spring 2017

For the slow stretch of highway under slight stars
the frames that hold lost fathers, black and white sisters.

For the chives, weeping in the garden,
yellow and wet with the burrowing season.

For the red squirrel who chatters after nuts
and follows my back with his eye.

For the sprinters, the joggers
the dog walkers, for all the movers of America

going always home, going with no more meaning
than the sounds given from one foot to another,

with no more intent than to move.  
Let the jet stream carry my prayers.

Let the prayer be for the grey
that eases between the limbs of the trees,

that brushes my house in the unspent morning,
for the riotous waves dissolving on the shore.

Let the prayer be for all the shadows that slip
between us, for the words we do not say

for the thoughts that we hold like lit cigarettes,
dangling from our mouths, drop and crush.

Cafe Review
Spring 2017

before a wall of Japanese knotweed—tall, entangled—
see from above, a reel of green,

before the bones of the house fall, 
before the shed where I crouch beside the white goat,

hands firm on her teats, falls
before the walls of the pantry fall

before the kitchen, the second floor bedroom
where I curl with a man, the hay shed

the pig pen, all fall
my life is made of light

has it too fallen?
are those my days

sunk deep in what was once the garden
lost among roots of redtop, witchgrass

the wild remnants of hay?
yes—once hayfield, once

thick tomatoes on vines
diapers and overalls hung from a line

peapods snapped, beans canned,
sheep with black noses pushing

to get grain from my hand 
have I fallen into this earth?

the road still runs with its blue rip-tune
spring still comes to take back the fallen

I slide my kayak into a stream finally free of ice
frogs startle, whirligigs spin in 

crazed circles, on the shore arrow arum leaves 
cover earth, my paddle dips, rises

Cafe Review
Spring 2017

i
 
I can only reach the line by standing on the metal box that once
held milk and cream in thick bottles. Into my arms the clothes ride,
 
wheel screeching, the chattering sun playing in the pines. Pull in
the billowing backs, shake, fold. The beginning of so many years
 
cleaning the clothes we wear, secret garments with odd
cups and openings, something to pull on over our indecency,
 
to cover the growth and wrinkling. My mother lays them flat,
sprinkles them with water like a blessing, iron hissing steam.
 
ii
 
We keep the copper bodied washer on the porch, its snout
of hose hanging over the lip of wood, dirty water feeding
 
burdocks and dandelions. Inside three shiny metal cups
stump up and down in a pounding circle, amid sparse
 
suds and cold water. With the wire to the motor slightly
frayed, I sometimes get shocked, pull back quickly,
 
dropping soggy diapers on the wood. Once my hair
tangled with sheets, my head pulled close to the wringer.
 
iii
 
After we move, the plumbing has yet to be done
for the washer, the gas lines still not run for the dryer.
 
But the laundromat in Searsport gleams. 
If I wanted, I could watch TV there. 
I lose countless single socks, pasted to metal drums. 

One day a woman taps my arm, 
holds my jacket, my canvas bag, my purse—
everything I brought and left on the bench. 
 
You shouldn’t leave stuff there, someone might steal
it. Easy for ‘em to walk right in, take everything.
 
I stare at the wine colored bruise
on her left cheek. I want to tell her that if someone
 
needs the little I have, they should take it. But my
voice folds flat and when I reach to take back
 
my things, she won’t let go. I have to pull them
free, unwanted anger bullying up in me.
 

Tar River Review
Fall 2017

Kayla and I sit out of sight where the hall turns,
a short leg to the exit, with a window to view 
the outside. Outside where snow trembles

on the lip of a small rivulet and sun catches
random rings of light. She chose chickens
for her topic, because I have them, she says.

She fans the pages of notebook, looking
for where she ended while I think about Ryan
who chose sharks, who’s never seen a shark,

but wears a tooth on a string around his neck,
tells me a great white can find me in the water
by the electricity I give off, then bite my skull open

and eat my brains. Chickens, on the other hand,
have short legs and a heavy body. Males with
brightly colored feathers are roosters and then

there’s the comb on their head, a flap of extra skin.
Kayla knows all this. She tells me about a rooster
they had once who turned ugly, chased her and her sister

up the drive, pecking their legs, until they arrived home
bitten and bloody. Her father said he’d had enough
got his gun, went out, shot the chicken dead,

from the loss  in Kayla’s voice I picture
the flesh tremble, the eyes glaze, the words 
barbed wires. I watch her shoulders

pull in as she sits beside me. The smell
of bread drifts from the cafeteria. 
She picks up her pencil,  erases whole paragraphs 


until I stay her hand. Chickens, she writes, 
and then stops. My own probing only more misdirection 
as she grasps at facts. They are not always white. 

Sometimes a rooster will peck you and there is blood. 
Sometimes they eat what you give them and that is still 
not enough. Hens lay eggs and you eat them.




Tar River Review
Fall 2017

we bought for fifteen dollars, black and rangy, 
parked in the darkness of an abandoned car wash,  
while in the morning his moonface hung over me, 
a redundant sun. This rodeo of a ride had no reverse, 

made a poor case for living the free and easy life, 
its carcass often stuck in the hospital no parking zone. 
Still, it’s where I landed, this cheap constellation 
of rays and cones, this hairy-headed boy who pursued me, 

ensnared me, freed me from the navy’s swabbies, could drop 
acid, smoke dope, but couldn’t afford a room. Days 
we lounged contentedly in the casket wagon, maybe walking 
to the dairy to devour hot fudge sundaes where he’d describe 

luminous planets, a bloom of sunbow rays. 
Some regret the loose track of the past, the ride  
through crumpled days, but I think it's sorrowful 
to get your back up over missteps, divide life 

into what is and what was, so I’ve combed 
the limber lines of once upon a time, consulted 
the oracle, embraced the train of shallow days, 
and pose content in the shadow of my lost insolence. 

Crab Creek Review
Spring 2017

and when it’s first reported 
there isn’t a name, only 
the bare bones of when—
about 3:30—and where—near 
Hilltop Store—and pictures—
small red car with the driver’s 
side caved in, hood twisted skyward 
in a mouth-gaped V, splayed
across the right front of the truck. 
Troopers said that the woman’s car 
crossed the centerline and I imagine
her, glancing at her sister’s
picture of the newborn on
her smartphone or reaching down
to retrieve the groceries fallen
to the car floor, never feeling 
the drift of the tires 
or sensing the way the distance 
from the new mown field
slowly widened.


Naugatuck River Review
Winter/Spring 2017

in great brick buildings while underneath 
a tree in the yard a man stood moving an invisible bow 
across a wire hanger tucked under his chin.
I strained to hear the music, but never did. 

Those days I tied diapers around the children’s necks, 
fed them pureed food while in the sunroom, 
behind the wire mesh, one girl spun on her toes, eyes 
wild animals with no escape skidding on blue cement. 

I made beds, folded sheets in tight angles and outside 
dark bodies of elms cut the sun to pieces. On visiting day, 
Olivia’s Aunt Jane came, touched her curls and cried, 
picked her up and sang nursery rhymes to the tune
 
of the slow moving fan. The girl’s wide tongue 
protruded from her mouth, drool slipped down 
the front of her shirt, limbs hung like putty melting, 
captive in heart-dulled arms. In those days 

the moon came and the tall boy with mismatched 
chromosomes pointed his finger and said the one word 
he knew: mooon—wonder woven in that one syllable. Too late, 
too wild with night-longings, I eased him back to bed, 

put on the johnnie with straps and tied it to the rails. 
In the room across the hall I listened to thick, clotted 
stillness while I matched pajama tops and bottoms. 
My shift ended, the shackle of hours broke, and I left. 

The bus moved through the hackneyed city 
with billowy sighs as the door opened and closed, 
and streetlight fell like stale bread on my lap.
Some died while I was away—

one boy with a head swollen to Wonderland size plunged
out of his chair, skin split, blood everywhere. 
Others slipped away quietly. Bone limbs twisted, 
they forgot the way to take in air, to lift eyelids, to sigh.
 
But I returned, worked on, lifted arms, birthed heads 
through holes in shirts, led them down windowless halls, 
bathed feverish bodies in shallow, waist-high tubs, 
my own life measured in diapers, spilled milk, sweat. 

Summer came, the wards impossible, strangled 
with tongues of heat. I piled children in a wagon, 
pulled it over broken ground, sang them James Brown—
Baby, baby, baby. Baby, baby, baby.  I got the feeling.



Comstock Review Award Issue
Fall/Winter 2016

I seize. A car engine driven
too long in the hot sun, steam
escaping from under the hood,
radiator a dark-throated beast
seethes and leaks. I stand

stricken. Words blown
from me by the sharp air
of your death. I crouch in
the bushes, wait for the worst
to pass, for muscles to

remember. Here, in the current
of life called Maine, here in
the vertex of all my choices,
I expect the world to stop,
the leaves still, the black calls

of the birds to fall like ashes
on the split curtain of June. This hard
packed bough, my mother’s death.
I climb the hill, feet meeting road,
tar a hot slap on my soles.

Published in:
The Comstock Review
Fall/Winter 2015