thieves & poets

Today, I'm thankful for...

The color orange.

White hydrangeas.

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (isn't there just something so adorable about him? I mean, look at that little hand.)

So, yesterday morning, something really random happened, which was both funny and annoying. It's about nine am, and I'm ironing in the upstairs family room, which looks out over the front yard. Jamie was laying in her usual spot in front of the window on a squirrel stakeout. (By the by, to entertain myself while ironing, I was watching the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene. Interesting, yet creepy.)
     Anyhow, Jamie starts barking wildly. I look out and see that some woman is leaving the house across the street, and the owners are yapping with her as she gets in her car. I shrug. Whatev. I tell Jamie to chill, which she does. They talk a while longer out there as I resume ironing.
     Next, Jamie starts going crazy, barking, growling. I look out to see that the woman, a sixty-ish plump gal, has pulled her car to the curb in front of our mailbox and is proceeding to rip part of our honeysuckle bush, planted beside the mailbox, up by the roots. Yep. She's standing there at ten am of a Sunday morning yanking with all of her might to swipe our plant. I was like, huh? I didn't care that much, as she only took a small part of the plant, but, I ask you - what the heck? If I hadn't still been in my PJ's, I'd have sprinted out the front door to ask her if she wanted me to fetch her a spade.
     So, apparently, if anyone wants any of our plants, they can just come right over and help themselves.

     For today's poem, my friend, Cornelia has agreed to let me post one if her poems. Her birthday is today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CORNELIA!!! Her poem is awesome, as is she. It is inspired by true events, as she is getting her first tattoo on May 1st. She had to make the appointment ages ago, as she's going with one of the top tat artists in Dallas. Maybe she'll let me post a pic afterwards.

Ink Me

Tattoo me

with doves and dragonflies and koi
and candied love words.
Scribe my calves with
vines, cherry blossoms, and galloping horses.
Paint indelible teardrops on my cheeks.
Drape powder-blue forget-me-nots and Psalm 37
across my shoulders
and Shakespearean verse down my vertebrae.

Etch credo on my body,

a shout to readers
that I have permission to be.

In black and gray and colored pigment

in lively flourishes and banners

announce to my mother, my siblings
that this body, this daughter, this sister, this person
is now free.
Tattoo a blazing phoenix across my back,
stinging, durable, sacramental art that roars ---
I rise from the ashy wreckage of our lives.

By Cornelia Blair