a bone to pick with time
for poppa ray
sitting out back
in the sun
near my magenta
mini-field of phlox
i look up to see
copulating dragonflies
careen through air
to ricochet off foliage —
drunk, directionless,
on their dizzy way
to lose themselves
in dogwood
blossoms
4/18/14
author’s bio
chansonette buck had the great good fortune to be inducted into the obermayr family at three years of age. she grew up among would-be-famous (many of whom achieved that fame) writers, artists, and musicians, and suffered the consequences of being a child erased by those ambitions. in the course of her life after childhood, she has accomplished many things, not the least of which is surviving. other than surviving, she earned a PhD in English at UC Berkeley, wrote a (still unpublished) memoir “Unnecessary Turns: Growing Up Beat” about that childhood, has had her work published in a variety of venues (and been nominated twice for a Pushcart) and has had the very great privilege and pleasure of performing from those works in berkeley, cleveland, and manhattan. ray obermayr, to whom this poem is dedicated, is her heart’s poppa, and her idea of an artist/poet through whom light moves, effortlessly. she knows herself blessed beyond measure to have been his “daughter.” he passed from this world on her birthday, 4/22/2014.