Published!!

Yes, it's true. I'm being published. Though only in a school literary journal, BYU's is award winning and of eight poets they pick every year, I was one of them! So my surprise and a little chagrin they pick the one poem in the few I submitted that I was least confident in. Let's say I have a whole lot more now! And this is it...

Lake Houses

Five pairs of bored child feet loll on the backs of carseats
And seven voices sing:
"Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta, stolen from Africa,
Brought to America."
Eyes half closed, catching snatches of red and orange and orange tree green
Flashing through my empty head.
With a gasp and a chorus of swiveling necks
The trees give way to houses,
Glorious, castle-in-the-air houses.
Houses dreamed of by children:
Tree houses;
Stilt houses;
Pink houses;
Houses that wish they were bungalows;
Houses round;
Houses with swings and bridges;
And every one hangs over the water.
Five child faces press against the glass
As Paradies-by-the-Lake floats by.
The last thing we see is a ready and redly gleaming skiff
Anchored at a spindling dock
And one small boy with a stick and hat,
Waving.

Happy Book ed. 3

1. magnolias
2. someday eating my weight in oreos
3. Caden Zesiger
4. fats cats yawning
5. making and then quickly eating cream puffs
6. wedding magazines
7. the house that built me
8. A-frames that point to heaven
9. stairs that don't go anywhere
10. avoiding aunt interrogation for one more week