Poetry Friday: "Tuscany Dreams"

We are 2 weeks away from the pre-publication order window for my forthcoming chapbook.  Have you ordered yours yet?  If not, go here to order your copy.  It will ship in June, and you'll have a lovely summer treat.

You may ask, why not wait to order until it's ready?  Because the press run is determined by how many books are ordered in this time period.  If the sales reach certain levels, more books are published, and since a second printing is unlikely, it would be great to make it to some of those higher levels. 

And if you order during this pre-publication period, you have no shipping cost.

Here's a poem to whet your appetite. This poem was first published in Adanna.


Tuscany Dreams


No one buys a suburban home
in Tuscany.
They buy old barns or sheep pens
or buildings of indeterminate
origin. In Tuscany,
the explosive wiring and undependable
plumbing seem charming
because it’s Tuscany.

No one thinks about transoceanic
flights or aging parents on a different
continent once they’ve bought
a house in Tuscany.
No one needs health
care in Tuscany. No one develops
rare diseases there.

No one mentions the cost of phone
calls to all the ones left behind in the move
to Tuscany. It’s all sun-drenched
colors and fresh foods, and no one suffers
homesickness in Tuscany.

To see how this poem interacts with others, order my forthcoming chapbook, Life in the Holocene Extinction,  here.  You'll find other poems of consolation and hope, poems that explore what elements of modern life give us hope in the face of all the stresses and calamities we face both individually, as a culture, and as a planet.