Oh, how you have never expected to be written about
in a way that uses beauty to become you on a page.
Your biggest fear, to be shown fully to the world,
standing in the sun and facing yourself.
But you sparkle, always welcoming honesty.  When first introduced,
I was told you were just a personality trait, manifesting
yourself in the types of bodies that grow worry warts
all over themselves. No one would admit to your loyalty,
the way that permanence is afraid of you because
even on your bad days, you refuse to leave. Words escape
in your presence and you always have questions, full of
endless wonder for the world.

Sudie McGladdery stopped by the house digging 
up some trouble for both of us. She pines for 
Excitement in her life and says I need it worse. 
She know’d how to put it, as worse keeps
Lingering when it should travel on over the mountain. 

Mommy stepped to the front screen, the line marked
Between her eyes deeper than a spring branch. 
Sudie always means trouble. Mommy used to put
A stick to both of us to make us mind. Not that it 
Did much to slow Sudie, but I’d mostly straighten up. 

After hugging the kids and promising to be back soon,
We climbed into Sudie’s wreck of a car. While it looks 
More like it should live in the junk yard, it can pure fly. 
The radio blaring, trees flying by, air blowing through me. 
We took off down the mountain escaping time and trouble. 

Suspended in speed, captured in a free floating bubble,
My mind cleared and I got the jolt of my life. Sudden like
I knew in my gut where it counts that Orville was gone, 
He didn’t know I was running off like a fool, didn’t know
If I got home, didn’t know right from wrong from me. 

The tie, to strong, was pure broke. The car could go 
till midnight and take up again and go even more. 
Going back or not had nothing to do with us anymore. 
There was no us, there was only me. The trembling
Started somewhere deep inside, and I turned around. 

The new me needs to start somewhere else, not in this car
Going into trouble I don’t need and don’t want. Sudie
And her adventures will have to wait. Maybe the cracked
Mirror on the back porch will let me see me. A me who
Never was before and now has to take hard steps alone. 

Mommy and the kids get a part of this me, God sits
Up there somewhere expecting duty, a friend here
and about will need to be included, but now I am another
Person. She feels like a new pipped chick, seeing the sun
and feeling free air. Misery can whisper, but the new stays.

failing,

    flailing,

           falling

              into the
                     
                           abysss. 

                                   
                                           reclaiming the light.
                      climbing,
 clawing,

                                                                           struggling, striving, somehow surviving 

                                                         …Typical Tuesday

streets

I drive

lexington

infuse

heat  watch

people

homeless 

crowd main street

benches

fountains illusions of

comfort

drive

radio junkie

npr

panic fear

my salt tears

juxtapose

green lawns – hot streets

Tates Creek –

Main Street – Peace –

Pain – in just ten minutes

streets

I drive

lexington

infuse

heat  watch

people

homeless 

crowd main street

benches

fountains illusions of

comfort

drive

radio junkie

npr

panic fear

my salt tears

juxtapose

green lawns – hot streets

Tates Creek –

Main Street – Peace –

Pain – in just ten minutes

Give me a straight back chair

tall enough that my ankles rest

under my knees.  Say you will sit

across the table from me every morning

and there drink my humors 

and smile, and reach to touch

my coffee-cupped hands, the sweet 

and the sullen, alike, dropping from 

finger tips, yours and mine.  Say 

This part will never change.

Yesterday, I decided to give up tears, 
Which wasn’t such a bad idea since
All the water in all the creeks and wells
Won’t bring him back, and crying makes
Me tired and the kids fretful. 

Going beyond thesse four sooty walls 
Might bring a little peace or at least
A break from the hurt that oozes
From every crack, which is a mess of
Ooze in this old worn out place. 

My blue dress hangs on me so bad you’d
Think I was a bean pole set to scare crows. 
They’s no pretty fat cheeks anymore either. 
Orville once said they was cherub cheeks. 
He even said, “Freckles don’t hurt you none.”

Freckles always did bother me but they’s so bleached
Out now you’d have to look close to find even one. 
Funny that you wish and wish for something better,
And when it happens all the good is plumb wrenched out. 
If I could, I’d go back to freckles and fat cheeks, too. 

But there’s no going back and right now we’re
Going out that door looking to find something
Stout and fun that don’t look dead or about to die. 
Kids need something to laugh about, but truth told
My grief has boiled until I am as dry as a droughty well. 

Somewheres there’s a swing, and ice cream and beer. 
We’ll find it, and wait real quiet hoping the preacher don’t
Bring the wrath down on our sinful heads. This is sin so 
Needed that it makes me real suspicious of his yelling
About them other danagers he threatens, hoping to keep us safe. 

Truth is, Preacher, there is no safe, and a little sin just might
Make the roof falls and the explosions and the suffocating
A mite easier to suffer, seeing as dead is forever and fun 
Is in might short suppoy on and under this old mountain. 
Come, kids, let’s find some smiles for those pretty faces. 

K. Bruce Florence 
June 30, 2016 

In early morning slant of light
New day calls itself into being

Caught in the spell

The mountain meets its reflection
Somewhere at the silent water’s edge
The line between them
As thin as enigmatic as the veil
Between creator 
And creation