The chosen Laureate will be announced next week, and will be appointed on Monday, April 16, at Cleveland Heights City Hall by Mayor Ed Kelley and City Council.

One Violin’s Opinion, 1790







If anyone thought to ask me, I’d say
my favorite instrument is
Marie Antoinette.
With my scroll of curls, the rosin that swirls
like a puff of powder over my long neck
and the swell of my breast,
I could feel competitive with her,
but I don’t. We are compatriots.
continued

Five Years Without A Kiss
Each mouth an open prayer—
lips, tongues, teeth their own flavor
and I’m the chemist probing the right mixture.

Long walks down crowded streets
find me stumbling into people:
men with perfectly heart shaped mouths
hungry for lipstick purse
when they notice me licking mine,
tongue in cheek.
lips, tongues, teeth their own flavor
and I’m the chemist probing the right mixture.
continued

a pick-up line.










The Target pharmacy line my grandmother waited in
was long & curvaceous- like the snake mound burial, still, but alive w/ growth.

The pharmacist was a lonesome dot, a vanishing point, an egg stuck in a uterine wall.
continued

This is a difficult choice. Stay tuned.

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