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Found Bra

from the “I dreamed . . .” ad campaign, 1949–1969 I dreamed I went to the opera in my Maidenform Bra.     But I really went to the operating table in my         Maidenform Bra. I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform Bra.     But I really went shouting in my Maidenform Bra. I…

Sandals

So hot today I wear my new sandals. It’s been a tough morning at Home Sweet Home, wondering why no one talks about Jesus’ teenage years—was he happy? sad? And why are the steamed tomatoes shelved next to the raisins? Sounds stupid, but I’d like even a glimpse of Plan A. I needed to talk…

The Fakirs

Cobras rise out of raw pits for them, coils swaying below each diamond head and red forked tongue. When in old robes they walk across a bed of sin, steam hisses as if each footstep held a pod of water and to the murmurs of the crowd, they lift their feet unscathed, and grin. And…

Swing

The mute boy was dragging the great stalled clock from his father’s study to the trash heap that smoldered at the edge of the woods when an old man with a stick chased him. Back when the boy’s father was alive, he’d tried to console his son, and maybe himself as well, by telling him…

Side Work

Great things begin In the periphery. Meanwhile my father Works third shift At the mustard plant. He’s around my age. He’s finished For the night. He revs his truck, Waiting for the heat. The ladder shakes In its rack on top. The heat is dusty, Coming on. All this Can happen Without us, just Out…

On Nuar Alsadir

It is my pleasure to nominate Nuar Alsadir. I have been a great admirer of her work for many years now. With echoes of Rumi and Hafiz, her poems are a delicate mix of the quotidian and the profound. In witty, vibrant, always surprising turns, she reveals to us the weight of each fleeting moment….

Questiones

Of Memory I. Messala Corvinus forgot his own name  II. One, by a blow with a stone, forgot all his learning. Another, by a fall from a horse, forgot his mother’s name and kinfolk. A young student of Montpellier, by a wound, lost his memory, so that he was fain to be taught the letters…

Hello, I Must Be Going

    I’m sitting in a London lecture theater and thinking of my mother, dead just these three weeks—     and by the way, reader, this will not, repeat, not, be one more crappy poem about a dying mother!—     as I listen to Dr. David Parker speaking on “Love and Death in Dickens,” how the…