---

New Shoes
 
If I were a goldfinch,
my throat would swell
with trills
for this sunny duo.
 
Today, I ditch
the purple suede
the red patent leather,
the ebony crocodile.
 
It’s not their skinny ankle straps,
nor their baby brass buckles.
It’s not even these tiny toe tucks. 
 
It’s the color.
 
Think fresh buttered sweet corn
or iced lemon pound cake
or summer. 
 
Think mouth-watering 
mustard
yellow.
 
You can’t spreadsheet
your salary and budget
for these shoes.
 
You just rip off your hose
and bare
your trembling sole.

The Arborist’s Divine Steed  
 
He lassos the muscled throat of your tallest branch,
cinches the rope like a bridle and swings
into your weathered saddle.
 
From one hand, a chainsaw sways like the single
weighted leg of a pendulum. The other hand
rests on your quiet flank. Is he gauging
 
your temperature or the depth of your disease?
He anchors the saw’s slick steel teeth
on your withered bark. The engine screams.
 
Oak dust scatters like shaken seeds.
You perfume the air with your sweet,
wild breath.  
 
 
 

 

 
 

---

Selected works on-line

Motherhood poems
http://www.literarymama.com/poetry/archives/2016/09/an-army-of-one.html

Child-rearing poems:
http://www.versewisconsin.org/Issue112/poems/keller.html

Power poems:
http://www.booksbywomen.org/whenwomenwaken/author/lhttp://www.literarymama.com/poetry/archives/2016/09/an-army-of-one.htmlorakeller/

Obsession poems:
http://lanternjournal.org/2013/03/please-stand-back/

A snake poem and more:
http://original-writer.com/gettingpoetrypublished56lora.html

The Beauty of Life:
http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=411

A fishing poem:
http://www.thenewpoet.com/2013/05/the-new-poet-5.html

Story poems:
http://www.blastfurnacepress.com/2012/11/blast-furnace-volume-2-issue-3.html

Poems about callings:
http://www.med-lit.vcu.edu/MLM2.2.pdf