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  • Birth of Blues

    "Pity the poor man," I hear them say, over steaming platters of red beans and rice and leaning against dreary gray storefronts. "He had the whole world in his shirt pocket." I hear them and I cry. It's Lester Banks they speak of Slim, malleably built, brown swells about his eyes that darken with his…

  • Swollen Haiku

    The Master took what he could— In one season a black dress— The pupil aimed for the whole thing— Remember Charades?—got the whole thing quickly today, Got it yesterday, would get some more tomorrow. They lived and worked at the bottom of a mountain —Bears ate voraciously in said mountains— Raccoons came down to the…

  • What the Skin Knows

    the underside of one wrist says to the other, peeled green and white what swims across the bridge is tiny tinier than diamonds slick as a gleam of wet new eggs traveling along a stick flesh crackles to confess what lies within body unsheathed open the fingertips are on fire cool as rivers the desolate…

  • Nihil Est in Intellectu…

    Here's how I know God: the taste of a ripe pear or that silken explosion of the air that sinks in, spewing empty blueness. Head and hair are washed clean instantly. I'm afraid that—let's say, your eyes—will melt onto my hands, exude a fragrance toward the sky or thunder      to the netherworld like the falls…

  • The Isle of Love

    Dolores meets the African boy in a tourist restaurant called The Yoghurt Inn. She is sipping a cold lemon juice, despite her vow to avoid drinks made with unboiled water, and trying to read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. It is extremely hot and humid. Before she collapsed in the bamboo-filtered…

  • Fishes

    . . . and yet this woman did not look like her, except for the little white shoes whose sole, where the toes went in, had imperceptible scratches like those of dancers. —Breton, Soluble Fish The Boston Ballet is doing “The Confusion of Modern      Adolescence” if you remove the first and the second to the…

  • To the Green Man

    for Philip Wilby Lord of the returning leaves, of sleepers Waking in their tunnels among roots, Of heart and bush and fire-headed stag, Of all things branching, stirring the blood like sap, Pray for us in your small commemorations: The facet of stained glass, the carved face Lapped by decorations on the column side, And…

  • Abusing the Privilege

    My feet were finally starting to get warm, so I knew that it would be time to get out soon. It always happened: as soon as the car heated up enough that you could no longer see your breath, it was time to get out. I looked up at the stone, hardwood and glass structure…