new poem “Little Red Suitcase” published in oddball – this very cool magazine
I hope you’ll check it out. I kept a little red suitcase in my childhood bedroom closet for many years-
I was always ready to run away…

little red suitcase

Glasses stretch another piece of writing on the basement desk.
A string of words magnified beneath the resting lenses. All other
sentences, words I’ve written and know as well as the magnified
ones, settle back into the smallness of shadows.

A small red suitcase.
Stashed in my closet for when the ideas in my head can’t take the
body impersonating them any longer. A child and her red suitcase.
Bottom of the closet next to my dog Charlie with the chopped off
ears. He’s curly pink. I cut his ears off so he won’t have to hear

what I do in my head.

My typewriter is turquoise. I remember it that way. Near the desk table,
my fifth and sixth parakeets most likely named Budgie One and Two
because that’s what they were. Maybe bright blue and bright green
parakeets don’t like what they see in their little bird mirror. No room
for suitcases in their orange cage so they just die.

No flying away when the windows are shut
and people are supposed to love you.