LOST LEGACY
by Ellaraine Lockie
Sunnyvale, CA

Houses a hundred years old
with Alzheimer's
Abandoned in isolation wards
on western prairies
Where homesteads were settled 
on small town sanity brinks 
Mine long ago lost to
profit margins on
minimal Montana farm
Hospice where I come to heal 
from city assaults
My heart heavier than
the hard timber
turned driftwood soft
Decayed gray matter
that once supported ancestors 
Who spun stories about
pet horses in the parlor
and vigilantes in the family tree 
Our only valuable heirlooms 
Tales vanished through
windows without panes
Into snow silent waste
Recycled in spring's 
meadowlark music
John Deere's perennial plantings 
And in sage scented memories 
When orphaned cottontails
came home with little girls
Who grew up and come home 
for foster care from a past
fading into oblivion
Where fragments of facts
atrophy into fiction
In the waste away
of what once was

FULL CIRCLE WITH

STRAIGHT EDGE
by Ellaraine Lockie
Sunnyvale, CA

All he needs
for a precision perfect shave
is his image in my eyes
Focusing a fragmented man mended with stitches of adoration 
Eyeshot analgesic
dressing addiction wounds
And softening relationship scars 
That endure deep beneath
surface of any razor nick
Pain altered into annoyance
with toilet seat disputes
and everyday errand offenses 
Defense mirroring
too many memories
His raw coldness
a result of rebel eyes
Averted by angry past
Into tunnel vision
Where ill temper
cuts connections
And razors rip sutures
that hand-hold us together
The estrangement agonizing
Until his gaze
meets mine again
Hypnotically healed
When a straight edge stare
shaves pain protrusions smooth Through reflections
in forgiving eyes