I’m impressed with the way that you’re dressed.
You flamboyantly wear that vermilion crest.
Your neat conical fez, while it points to a peak,
is just challenged in greatness by only your beak.
And although you display with your red, mohawked hair
that concerning conformity you do not care,
that in spite of rebellion displayed in your flare,
you’re surprisingly regal in suit that you wear.
In a charcoal tuxedo, nay, ebony black,
how it glistens like satin down curvaceous back.
Let it be ever stated, however absurd
that I envy the fashion of wood pecking birds.

-published summer 2018 edition of Great Northern News

I saw him first
one wintry ski.
I saw his sage
face smile at me.
That Cheshire Cat
could barely see;
with one eye gone,
I thought him cursed.

And ev’ry day
I’d ski that trail,
That cat sans bod
and lacking tail,
That Cheshire Cat,
‘neath quiet vail;
would watch me pass
and nothing say.

I’d lichen him
to pompous jerk;
He grinned at me
with smuggy smirk.
That Cheshire Cat,
with silent bark;
his vig’rous face:
his only vim.

I couldn’t say,
Why’I thought he’d leave,
when weather warmed,
from tree retrieve.
That Cheshire Cat,
I din’t believe
would linger long
before he’d stray.

But then came spring,
and summer, too.
The puss was there
each fall anew.
That Cheshire Cat,
he moss have knew
th’amusement that
his face would bring.

Now at those hills
when I go hike
or ski or hunt
or fat-tire bike,
That Cheshire Cat
I’ve grown to like
will give me si-,
-lent, subtle thrills.