Sallie
Through the back window, I saw the first yellow leaf of fall, as I gathered your fur that’s been collecting in the corner. My friend, I am not used to the idea that you are dying. #KatherinesCoffeehouse
Katherine’s Coffeehouse
Cut
How blunt the scissors used too often. Want to stay sharp? Use only when needed. Refrain from grinding edges, trying to snip tense cord or wire. These are scissors, for god’s sake. Who do you think you are? #KatherinesCoffeehouse
Sheaf
Are you starving yet? Has your stomach turned blue and black, inside out with hunger? Have you bruised your back working for enough just to feed your children? Have you tilled until night fell, sweating and swearing, and in between the hell of hay and grieving home, consoled yourself with an ancient hum? Is your
The Summer of Our Content
Now was the summer of our content, made possible by the sun, and here we lay, and here we slept, bothered by no one, besides Sir Winter happening into our dreams. Where goes warmth when that knight comes? Where go lazy thoughts? Quickly, now. Get quilts out of hiding. The just-in-case days are arriving. #KatherinesCoffeehouse
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Concert
In the 80’s, there, in row 103, me, lighter raised, like everyone else in praise of music. But mine – I make it dance for me. #KatherinesCoffeehouse
I read the news today, oh boy
I cannot handle my country handling guns, aiming into the eyes of children, my neighbors, yours, ours. Where is god? Wearing camouflage, in the bushes? Is even he armed? #KatherinesCoffeehouse
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Train
By Katherine Gotthardt Maybe you’re supposed to detach from life’s thick ooze in order to recover. Is that what I’m doing? I don’t feel saved. Don’t pray for me. Don’t bother. Put your prayers on a train, hope for enough fuel. Because that’s the last thing we need. Another wreck. #KatherinesCoffeehouse #PoemsAroundTown See this
Gossip Column
AC went out, like my neighbor who everyone says “gets around.” The guys say she’s hot. The women, well, they say she’s a slut. Me, I don’t care. She steps lightly through our lanky grass, picks up soggy tabloids chucked on our lawn last week, recycles them, never bothers to read who made the front
Backyard
The world is carnivorous – poets not so much. We are grass on a suburban lawn, planted like a good idea, fertilized. Mowed. “Know your place,” says the owner. “Stay low.” Ah, but how green we are. How green. As if we will always be young. #KatherinesCoffeehouse
Tortuga
Because the matted hay blocked his wrinkled gaze, and because I am who I am, I felt the call to move him to a higher place. And thus, soft as a mother’s hum, I wrapped my fingers around the mottled shell, grazing the creases of his thick neck, raised him just a few inches, resting