Newly Published Poems

Visitors

I look out over the lake
and stare at light shimmers.
Everything blurs.
I shudder when I see my parents
dancing on the waves.

I smell Mama’s ylang ylang lotion.
Catch a whiff of Daddy’s tobacco on a breeze
that ripples near the water lilies. I hear Mama’s
sweet soprano voice as she sings
the way she used to sing so many years ago,
Detour there’s muddy roads ahead
while Daddy booms,
Candy kisses wrapped in paper
in his off-key bass voice.

Now they shuffle along the shore
while I dangle my legs over the pier
and pat wooden planks next to me.
Sit with me.
Sit with me as nightfall turns
the evening sky to a peachy purple.
I promise I’ll scoop
a bowl full of butter
pecan if they’ll sit awhile
and talk to me.

Truth be told,
I’d promise them
most anything
if they would return.