Diane Elayne Dees

Chopping raisins is punishment called a chore.
The sticky blade will not cut.
Chop, run water, wipe.
...

It doesn't seem like seven years have passed
since we first saw the smoke and heard the blast.
When traumatized, a slowing down is needed,
...

The truth is like ink that leaks from a pen
no matter how careful you are filling the nib.
The truth is like the gel you place under
...

A twelve-year-old boy, kidnapped in Iraq
and held for ransom. The family paid-
his sexually abused body then found
...

This is not the tennis you learned in school
in New York, California or Wisconsin.
This is dirty. Socks turn red, feet slide
like sandpaper on the smoothest pine
...

My father stands behind my mother;
he guides her hands on his favorite rifle.
Behind them is a weathered shed;
...

Tar balls appear thirty miles
from my from my front door.
In the early morning and near dusk, the perfume
...

Arctic ice melts,
white bear starves.
White House speaks:
...

The image we will always remember:
You, swirling and spinning
throught the streets of New York,
...

Daughter of hunters,
Atalanta knows survival.
Daughter of bears,
...

You danced on the patio, bending to shadows
sprawled on the lawn by apple trees
gleaming gold in the New England dusk.
...

Endless Contract Negotiations Wearing Thin on Drew Brees
Front page headline, New Orleans Times-Picayune
...