first autumn sunday

drizzle caught

in a spider's

net. berries

dangle beneath

belly soft sky.

shine struggles

in its missed place.

Poem for the fallen (Dedicated to Fallon Smart)

sitting at a cafe's sidewalk table

sunday afternoon, black irish tea

and a chocolate chip cookie, late

summer sun palms the right side of

my face, my cheek.

traffic crawls past the median's

memorial for the fallen

girl who tried to cross

the too wide and impatient

street, anthology of

Italian women poets

lays open on my lap

as a tawny young butterfly

alights

upon its sunkissed page.

http://bikeportland.org/2016/08/26/a-life-lost-too-soon-photos-from-the-fallon-smart-memorial-ride-190481