Postcards

 Postcards

Arrive.
Bringing
Care.
Distance
Echoes.
From elsewhere,
Gathering light.
Held
In hand,
Journeys
Kept.
Light
Memory.
Notes
Opening
Paths.
Quietly,
Returning
Summers.

Time
Unfolds.
Voices
Whisper
Xenia grace.
Yesterday
Zealously remembered.

Purple Umbrellas

 Purple Umbrellas

Lift my spirit,
purple umbrellas.
Tiny pockets of twilight
perched above white hydrangeas,
keeping the sun from stealing
their porcelain blush.

In my sister's nascent garden,
everything is practicing:
buds learning to blossom,
bees tuning their buzzing,
breezes humming backup,
while the umbrellas sway
like flowers pretending to be birds.

They make me think of Mary Poppins,
drifting over London's rooftops,
her umbrella winking at the wind
as if every gust were in on the joke.

And surely, they're cousins
those merry umbrellas and Katya,

who is, by now, somewhere over the Gunks,
zipping through blue skies
with determination in her pockets
and laughter on her sleeve,

off once again
to rescue Gina
from yet another faux paw—
the kind that leaves everyone smiling,
tails wagging,
and the whole world blooming
just a little brighter.

Because gardens know the secret:

it takes only a splash of purple,
a pinch of whimsy,
and one well-timed umbrella
to turn an ordinary day
into a song.

The Third Day

 The Third Day

On the third day
we found a radio
sleeping in the garage.

It woke
to soft music,

and the silence
opened

like dry earth
meeting rain.

The empty rooms
remembered breath.

Our hearts, too.

A dark screen
is only absence.

A song
is enough.

Show 'Em What You Got

 Show 'Em What You Got

Anthony had a job lined up before they had even left New York. Two years after they moved in together, a four-day trip to Hawaii allowed him to make it happen. While Gina toured Pearl Harbor, Anthony was busy building his future. He started by calling the local head of Sears' Home Improvement Division in Honolulu. Then he walked into the man's office and waited. 

And waited.

For hours.

His persistence finally paid off. Impressed by the young man's determination, the boss handed Anthony the number of another ambitious Italian on the other side of the island.

Anthony called immediately.

The following evening, he and Gina met Sal P. and his Japanese wife, Kiki, for dinner. Sal owned the local siding company, whose 

slogan proudly proclaimed, "Steel Is for Real."

Over dinner, Anthony's confidence filled the room. He had already proven he could communicate, but Sal still had one question.

"Can you run a company?"

Anthony never hesitated.

"I can."

Sal wasn't completely convinced, but he admired the conviction.

"Come back in a few months," he said. "I'll give you a job. Then we'll see."

It wasn't a promise easily made. Sal had heard plenty of confident talk from would-be employees over the years, but few ever lived 

up to their own words.

Anthony intended to.

The truth was that he knew nothing about installing steel siding. He was a roofer by trade. But he learned quickly, worked relentlessly, and before long had impressed the hell out of Sal.

In return, Sal became more than an employer.

He taught Anthony how to sell. He patiently corrected his terrible spelling. In another life, Sal had been an English teacher, but wanderlust had carried him far beyond the classroom. Business had become his new adventure.

The partnership flourished.

Within a few years, Anthony was running the company while Sal focused on sales. Their strengths complemented one another, and the business prospered.

Eventually, Anthony felt the pull to build something of his own.

Sal wished him well, knowing that independent spirits are rarely meant to stay in one place forever.

Soon afterward, Sal moved to Saipan to launch several new businesses. Kiki had lost her battle with an aggressive cancer, and Hawaii no longer felt like home without her. Rather than dwell on grief, Sal chose another beginning.

Anthony hired a trusted local employee and continued building his own success. Business was good, and he never let anyone forget who he believed was carrying the financial load.

As his confidence grew, so did his need to remind Gina who was responsible for their lifestyle.

He often told her he was the earner in the family, as though his paycheck gave him the final word. Eleven years older than Gina, he believed age and income entitled him to authority. What had once looked like confidence was slowly revealing itself as control.

Anthony had built his career through persistence and determination. He had earned Sal's respect by proving himself, one opportunity at a time.

At home, however, he expected respect without question.

There was a difference, though Anthony rarely saw it.

 

I'll Show You the World

 I'll Show You the World

He said, I'll show you the world,
and Gina—still soft with the faith
that good hearts recognize good hearts
mistook a wolf
for a man carrying flowers.

Anthony knew every beautiful sentence
that sickness could wear.
He stitched himself from borrowed sorrows,
made every old lover a villain,
every scar a medal,
every lie sound like survival.

She believed him.

She believed tears meant truth,
that broken men only needed love,
that promises were maps,

not traps.

So they married
before the echo of warning
could catch its own breath.

He gave her rings,
stories,
and ghosts with different names.

Lola became the monster.
Laundry became betrayal.
Cold takeout became proof.

Children became witnesses
in a courtroom built from his delusions,
where Anthony was always innocent
and someone else carried the blame.

Then came the Chevy Blazer
iron crashing through the fragile theater,
truth arriving without knocking,
headlights cutting straight through
his careful performance.

Still he called.

Still his voice wrapped itself
around her hope
like ivy around a gravestone.

Still she believed
the next apology
would be the honest one.

So they crossed an ocean together,
newly married,
chasing the paradise
he'd painted in impossible colors.

Hawaii waited,
green and breathtaking,
while beneath every postcard sunset
his darkness unpacked itself
one lie,
one wound,
one cruelty at a time.

He had promised her the world.

He never mentioned
he meant
the one he had already
set on fire.

 

Purpose Driven

 Purpose Driven

In the bicentennial year,
when flags bloomed like bright weeds
from porches, windows, courthouse lawns,
Katya moved through the city
like a small question with whiskers,
listening.

She met a man whose thirty years on Wall Street
had folded shut like a ledger at dusk;
his good shoes still shone,
but accusation followed him
like rainwater in the seams.

She met a young woman carrying degrees
as carefully as glass bowls,
only to find the cupboards bare,
the jobs gone thin as soup,
the food-stamp office lit with tired fluorescent mercy.

She met a mother of five
with three jobs knotted to her back,
her children turning keys in empty kitchens,
learning too young
how silence can sound like supper.

Rich or poor, guilty or only tired,
they carried trouble in different pockets.
Some hid it under laughter,
some under lies,
some under the hard bread of habit.

And then there was Gina—
wealthy Gina,
who lived behind gates polished bright as silver,
where roses climbed the walls
and silence learned to keep secrets.

She wore pearls at dinner
like small moons at her throat,
smiled when the room expected smiling,
and lifted crystal glasses
with hands that had learned to steady themselves.
Her house held marble floors,
fresh flowers,
locked doors,
and words sharp enough
to leave bruises no mirror could prove.
But somewhere inside her,
a window had not closed.

It was Gina who made Katya stop,
who taught her that suffering could wear perfume,
ride in black cars,
and sit beneath chandeliers without being seen.
Pity became purpose,
not like thunder,
but like a match struck in a dark room
small at first,
then certain enough
to show the way out.
No one would think to ask a cat for help;
cats belonged on windowsills,
in alleys,
in stories told to children.

What could a cat do
against fear dressed as marriage,
against a voice that closed doors,
against a mansion that felt smaller than a cage?
Perhaps not break the lock.
Perhaps not silence the voice.
But perhaps she could sit at Gina’s feet
until Gina remembered
she was not alone.

And perhaps, one morning,
Gina would open the smallest door first
a phone call,
a packed bag,
a name trusted enough to say aloud
and the house that had kept her
would become only a house,
while the road beyond it
opened like sunrise.

But Katya was brilliant
in the quiet way moonlight is brilliant
on a kitchen floor at midnight.
And Tiki, tall enough for foot pedals,
drove the Time Machine
while she planned beside him,
her paws folded like prayers.

He gave her more than motion,
more than miles bending backward.
He gave her friendship,
that small, steady lantern
money cannot buy,
and loneliness cannot blow out.

Blank

 Blank

Face it, Gina
you are clueless,
the perfect rube
for his brutality.
And not much has changed.

You tried to leave,
but he kept pulling you
back into the maze,
where every exit
looked like forgiveness
and every promise
turned into another wall.

You stayed mired in the bog
for years,
calling survival

something nobler than fear.

Now you're old.
The Rose of Rosendale
has wilted,
yet somehow
you're still wet behind the ears,
still believing
the next apology
might bloom into spring.

It's 101 degrees, baby.
Maybe you could cool off
in the Dunk Tank,
let the shock
wake you from yourself.

Forget the past.
It has already taken

more than its share.

Hypnotize yourself.
Plan a future.
Hop on a new freight train
one that doesn't circle back
to the same forgotten station.

Wreck what's left
in cat years,
shed every borrowed skin,
and walk away.

You do remember
how to walk away,
don't you?

Because the door
was never locked

Only your hope was.