Published in An Anthology of Pandemic Poems, Oregon Poetry Association 2021

Book available on Amazon. 

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‘We Are Here to Love Each Other’ (Maya Angelou).

It’s a drizzle dribble covid kind of day

everything is plastic

including the food

the sun has been strangled

behind the smoke

trees can’t breathe

its hurricane season

wear a mask can’t you read?

I think I’m in a movie

but I didn’t audition

the national anthem has lost its rhythm

I try to be zen but its increasingly hard

the pigs and the chickens

still locked in the yard

crops are all poisoned with pesticide

I just can’t find a good place to hide

each time I breathe in

a dark storm breathes out

ordering delivery

I don’t want to go out.

It’s a melting mother covid kind of day

debating about coal mining

the warming sun and minimum wage

vaccines, proud boys, racism and guns

Russian interference, Chinese deep web

demonstrators and hooligans

can anyone keep up?

I’m reading a book

definitely science fiction

until I come to the part

where I’ve been written in

between the leaves

I can’t make much sense

the deep green forest is vermillion red

we’re drowning in political stench

Is that my phone ringing

I pick up the call

telemarketing robot

‘have you insurance at all?’

It’s a cracked and confusing covid kind of day

would it really clear up

if we all had our say?

Would breathing get better

like burnt earth turns around

would we gather together

touch hands

way lost

then found?

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Published in SMALL FEATHER, 2020.

Available form Finishing Line Press. https:///product/small-feather-by-jade-rosina-mccutcheon/

Holding Your Cloud

There was a program

about memory

on the radio

something about it

took me away

into clouds

white puffy spaces

always about to become

moments

always interrupted

by the breeze.

I found a seat

overlooking

the view

from the vineyards

watching a memory

settle into the landscape

shuffling its feet

and laughing

like an elusive rope hanging

down the wall of a well

to the moment

of my grief

over you.

Skin

Skin is

extraordinary

holds us in

holds us together

separates us

  from air

from each other

and yet it is

so thin

so easily damaged

and so soft

to touch.

I don’t think it’s working

this way of being

this separation

of each other into

little parcels

of skin color.

It is clear

we are the same

beyond skin

kaleidoscopic

such beauty in

color art divine

on skin delicate

story parchment.