Diamonds are For Never

Like the handsome young man on that commercial,
I want to slip a string of diamonds around your neck while you sleep,
Accompanied by the sophisticated acoustic music of a female singer.
But knowing me, the clasp would catch on the headboard,
And you would wake up and panic at seeing me staring up close in your face,
And you would feel a choking sensation against your neck,
And you would jerk,
Knocking the painting above you off the wall
On to your head,
Which would bleed.

And so, my darling, I will not give you diamonds.
I will merely hold you close
And memorize the steady beat of your breaths--
The pulse of my sanity--
As you dream nervelessly composed.

Resignation

Divorce is a chilling word
like Cancer or
Audit or
Never,
a lawyer’s word, like
Dissolution,
a word of packing up,
shutting down,
pulling the plug.
It is a word unanticipated,
bitter on the tongue.
Divorce is an option
thrown on the table
and then regretted,
like Suicide or
Bankruptcy,
by those who vowed they wouldn’t.

The Sun is Yellow Crayon

She is eight, and she has learned of planets, moons, and stars at the planetarium. Universes so big that the Milky Way is only a grain of sand inside the cosmic beach. Stars--red, dying, bigger than the sun or blue, newborn, younger than the sun--are so big they filled the entire projection screen.
She shares with her father, who was not at the planetarium, and he is proud of what she has learned, the news of freshly discovered science that excites her as much as the knowledge from the tree in the garden: the spinning grandness of creation, the brightness of burning steaming gasses whose light may reach us long after the redness fades.
But he wonders. She is learning more and more about our world. Now that the truth is known, as great as the truth may be, will the sun, when she draws it, still be a face with a smile?

Fred Baker

The Obituary
Fred L. Baker, 70, of Marietta, died Sunday, Nov. 10, 2007. No services are planned. Survivors include one sister, Wilma J. Baker of Georgetown, Tenn.

From Wilma
When we were young and running under trees
That guard the silent musings in the square,
We never thought our childhood hedged with ease
Would overgrow the curb 'till no one cared.

And now the day should be when I should mourn,
A minister should, standing o'er your head
The final sermon read whic-

From Fred
There is no need for this. It can stop, my sister. No need for words at the end. It is only you now. I never liked services on Sunday that we forgot by Friday when the beer flowed thicker than communion wine. Just as I lived, so I like it. The fires will burn me down to who I am. And those who care will care enough to say goodbye before passing on.