Are you my mother?

        The bridge was mossy and crumbling, so much so that I held little Hanna in both hands as she clutched the rusty railing.  Like a tiny turtle, Hanna stuck her head over the top bar and peered into the babbling brook below.

        "Mom," she exlaimed quickly, "I see them! I see all the fish!"  Underneath the glassy surface ran a school of jumping fish--too many to even count.

         I felt her adjust herself in my arms to get a better vantage point.  After a watching for a minute, Hanna furrowed her brow and said, "Do you think the mommies know which ones are their babies? They all look the same."

         "I imagine so, " I smiled.  "Mommies know."

          She nodded her blond head, all at once relieved, and stated, "Good!" 

the preceding was written for Magpie Tales, a photoprompt provided by tess kinkaid

at first glance

From the picture
one cannot envision that night
when she drowned her infant in the bathtub
and ran, dripping, to slit the dog's throat
in the backyard while drenched in moonlight
and dancing
Guilty droplets of water spinning off her like a top,
long hair flying in ropes that, from a distance,
blended perfectly with the howling branches of the birch trees

one cannot hear her shrill cackle
taunting the various gods of the night sky
that they should not have challenged her so
 perceiving weakness
because the taste of blood was in her mouth
and who were they to tell her of
demons and descendants



The following was written for the photoprompt provided by Magpie Tales.

Yin and Yang

Petite, hunched Chinese medicene man leans forward
  his birdlike eyes darting up and down my tense frame
     one liver-spotted hand reaches out to locate my spastic pulse,
        the other gently, ever so gently, cups the end of a stethescope to my heart


We sit silently as Roman statues in the cold sterile room
     I examine the whisps of hair on his head and his small feet on the floor
          Our breaths fall in line unconsiously, starchy and slow
              we hold our intimate pose, as if we have been here a million times before


He leans backs gradually, his paw darts back in to his creased white pocket
      I look into his soulful eyes and see the judgement of a thousand suns
          He has seen this story before--knows it will always come to a pained grin
              then he will say he cannot fix what is wrong with me