Apricot Pie

for dVerse

The open oven reveals

Blackness surrounding a new world

Protected by a golden flakey crust

Apricot lava boiling to the surface

Cooling into bubbled glass

Pooling at the feet of burnt mountains

The edges held back by a sea of glass

Lest any traveler tumble

And fall from a flat world

Palengke Poem

Magpie Tale 229

Down at the palengke
- the wet market -
fruits sit side by side
sometimes oranges, bananas
and rambutan with soft red prickles
but my favorite
mangos
long and smooth
sometimes sticky
heavy in my hands
smelling of gentle yellow
sometimes sour
but mostly
sweet

After

for dVerse

She holds braids

that once she dreamed

Rapunzel-like would coil to the floor.

The cutting did not hurt.

Who knew

the inside of hair is darker

than without?

Who knew

it takes more than a haircut

to change a face?

And these Rapunzel-braids

will be someone else’s joy.

But in her mind’s mirror

the hair still floats long

and longer.