I Talked to God on a Tuesday, Sunflower Volume 2, The Conjuring, and Family Tree were all published in the Blood issue. Check it out!
Right now, Family Tree is a bit jumbled on their website. Here is the poem how I wrote it:
Family Tree
They romanticized how they met
young adult group Kimberly - brand new
to church and christ - appeared
volleyball is the name pastoral love
the game Douglas noticed her fall
and get back up he knew she could live
a hollowed life - sometimes touched
by a holy yellow light
most times forgot so nine months later
they married and he adopted
her young son like Joseph to Mary
before having four more
together
***
Doug
had
three
Kim
had
four
siblings
all brothers
all the time
do they always grow
a p a r t
***
The world made sense
on a court
sneakers cracking
against the crowd
shots gone up
and swallowed down
fleeting moments reborn
eleven years later
his younger brother
his better – loved best the
tallest, baby son
competition the others
did not want
could not beat
now the four
barely text or speak.
The world didn’t give
a wide road
daisies discovered in an
only daughter she
needs to be tough though
and treads through
alcohol and weed
like her brothers like
her father – the almost
Father — the grandfather
who felt her – baby’s
father who abandoned
she raised her son
like she and her brothers
strong independent
waiting for the sun.
***
(my favorite of her stories)
Frances grew up with no indoor plumbing
the march outside dreaded
because of weather and all her friends
were getting toilets
maybe, if she lit the outhouse
she might, too
so she stomped
and drug the match hard
before throwing it down the hole.
She dropped out of school
tended house and younger siblings
then married and tended house
children grandchildren
we played Skipbo and Solitare
made pizza bagels clam chowder
her knotty fingers tapping constantly
rasping tables
fingers flicking a match
still waiting for the house
to burn down.
(beyond her
I know nothing)
***
Barbara had a pet rooster
it howled for her so she could
put her bones back together
she waited for the tracks
to bring her father back home
with a little of his pay left
not sprinkled along the way
like drips of whiskey from the train
one day the rooster chased
her brother down he slammed
a door on its neck
they ate rooster for dinner
and she spent years
trying to find her voice
becoming caretaker instead of cared for
she glues family together clutching shards
hewn from substances and abuse
a husband walking the same
tracks her father rode
she saves her money
smashes glass bottles
brought before her
she makes mosaics of roosters
to hang around her house a fortress
for prodigal sons she howls
***
They tell me I am descended
from Hungary some greats ago.
Julianina saw a better life here
they miswrote her name
in Ellis Island
a story and mistake
are all i have of her
Julianna May 
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