Writing Spaces

Writing a life, writing a death.




image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Stratford, Stone 2

Leavings

Serene Rose lipstick

a Micky Spillane crossword puzzle

a recipe for garden spring rolls clipped out of the local newspaper

red but dejected teddy bear

dozens of inhalers

roll of stamps

quarters for casino

blue and white dishtowel with blue hearts

sprouting garlic

abalone shell from Long Beach forty-seven years ago

impeccably clean sheets

several gallons of Chinese chicken salad

turquoise jelly beans

birch trees and a linden

a sturdy old barometer

a neighbor lonely for talk

Zoe the cat fretting against the back screen door

picture of me at twenty-four looking unlike myself

a gallon of Johnnie Walker Red

a bottle holding the remembrance of White Linen

a tiny jade frog

a Norwegian back-scratcher

the chicken doorstop

the rain barrel, now full, whose lip Zoe drinks from

those fine New Mexican clouds

a Chinese fortune, “You will be happily surprised by a long-time friend”

a dryer full of towels

her deck of playing cards

—Christie

Writing Spaces

Santa Fe, New Mexico—the perfect place to write, or paint.

image:  Hacienda Nicolas

New Mexico Inklings

the red earth

of my childhood:

La Bajada Hill

against rain-blackened

summer mountains,

Santa Fe

abandoned racetrack—

stalls all standing open now,

no quiet whicker of horses

moss roses

in the patio,

this last day of July

linden shadow

on the pale adobe wall,

the ghost of the old cottonwood

And one from just before I left for college, which has swum back to my mind:

croquet in the dark

at the finish of summer,

before we part ways

—Christie

Writing Spaces

Write about nature!

image:  Grass growing on a wooden table, Frank Vincentz

Inklings

wind from the bay

suggests a flotilla

of white boats

a string of paper birds

on a cubicle wall

is dreaming flight

 

tiny cones

dusted with yellow pollen

carry the memory of trees

—Christie