Baiku 12 (Falling)
October 28, 2018
Fall wind scatters flocks/ Birds and leaves, from branch to sky/ Have we stem, or wing?
Author: Jill Madden Melchoir
Poet, cyclist, mother, lawyer, daughter, nature-lover, wife, photographer. Fan of Yeats, John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Wes Anderson, the Impressionists, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Martin Luther, Jesus. Not in that order.
Irish Evening
October 24, 2018
Auld Jack Devine, as afternoon bows to the long shadows of a June evening, stands there, then, in the green and wet field, as they all are green and wet, appraising these Americans searching County Mayo for Jack Devine, clutching a damp ship’s manifest: Well. Aye. Ye found him. Auld Jack, eighty if a day, … More Irish Evening
Grief is an Animal, Slouching
October 16, 2018
For B. I. Grief is an animal, slouching behind the bolted door in your soul’s bleak and darkened house – ranging around with muddy paws and ragged claws, dragging the covers off the bed, off of your chest and thrashing through the cold ashes left by the fire gone cold in the hearth of your … More Grief is an Animal, Slouching
Crivitz Piggly Wiggly Philosophy
June 3, 2018
It’s a Thursday in May after five when I swing into the Piggly Wiggly with two bikes on the back of my SUV, and the dog inside; The woman slicing my deli ham struggles with the wrapper on the summer sausage, limps like her hip is bad, too; she paces, trapped behind the glass cage; … More Crivitz Piggly Wiggly Philosophy
Ask For Me Tomorrow And You Shall Find Me a Grave Man!
May 30, 2018
So Mercutio cried – and before and since and ever, the years start over in darkness, the face of the earth turned away from the sun; The calendar is a ragged thread of a winter sweater snagged on a fencepost nail; it’s a ball of yarn spooling out into the future, bouncing across the kempt … More Ask For Me Tomorrow And You Shall Find Me a Grave Man!
Breaking and Entering
May 11, 2018
Winter broke and entered years ago, pressing icy fingers against our skin, wandering under our shirts, searching for our hearts, listening as we slowly wound down – we were watches kept in a drawer of an empty house. But I think you must have jacked open some painted-over lead-poisoned window, somewhere, deep inside, (maybe in … More Breaking and Entering
Wes and Jesus Come up Empty
May 11, 2018
I. After we see paintings of the sea, and moonlight, and doom by Winslow Homer, after we work on income tax forms and insurance and eat carnitas burritos and watch Netflix, I don’t feel well, it’s not a bellyache or a hangover or a fever or something that CVS can fix. it’s like this existential … More Wes and Jesus Come up Empty
Baiku #7
April 1, 2018
All the birds rise up/ fragments of lake taking wing/ undone, becoming.
22 Years Later
February 25, 2018
I. On the way up to the lake house, the back of the vehicle jammed with things of this earth: snacks, casseroles, a snowboard, three pairs of snow pants, a snow shovel for the ice rink, skates, sleeping bags, water, wine – and after passing barn upon barn, acre upon acre of crumbling stone and … More 22 Years Later
Night on Shakey Lakes, -17°F
January 28, 2018
Tonight we sleep above the ice, (cocooned like mousies in sleeping bags) under an impossible number of January stars, (brilliant like only winter stars can be, Orion hunting alone) over the lake, and the fish in the lake, (swimming slowly in the iced water capped by sixteen inches of ice) in this bitter cold, (as … More Night on Shakey Lakes, -17°F
Halfway North 