(She is) Unbroken
Unbroken There were times I imagined you different. My young mother mind pictured you— normal, typical, non-disabled. I can’t use those words anymore for their opposites evoke— lack, absence, tragedy, and you, my child, are…
Night Upon the Prairie
My poem, Night Upon the Prairie, was published in Writing in a Woman's Voice poetry journal yesterday. While writing this I channeled singer/songwriter energies. If I had learned to play guitar, I think this one…
MelindaNovember 5, 2022
Categorically Speaking
Dubbed One name for a collection of can’ts, of never wills and less-thans, a singular bucket into which they dump the myriad ways she comes up short. Autism. The rusty scuttle whose name expands to…
MelindaApril 14, 2021
Me and My Shadow Go to Market
It is May 2020, still early in The Covid Times. We take ourselves to the market, by which I mean our whole selves, me in my layers of self-consciousness— the run of the mill kind…
MelindaOctober 26, 2020
When all this is over…
WHEN THIS IS OVER Bring bread, chewy and warm, wrapped in that red checkered tablecloth that always sings picnic, which is short for happy family, easy friendships, peace and plenty in our town state country…
MelindaApril 20, 2020
Prospecting for Grace
Praise The faithful sun, generously stirring energies of Earth and atmosphere, coaxing every green thing towards the rising song of spring. Parents walking with their children outside, smiling and laughing, nodding at neighbors out washing…
MelindaMarch 25, 2020
Daisy Bell
I'm showing my age, and proudly, when I ask this—do you remember the sweet old song called Daisy Bell? "Daisy, Daisy, tell me your answer, do/ I'm half crazy all for the love of you..."…
MelindaFebruary 11, 2019
In praise of song
SONG STORIES You open your mouth and out pours a river carrying the rhythms of fluids— blood and lymph, tears, synovial. It is current, and source, keeper of…
MelindaJanuary 2, 2019