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Driving from coast to coast down looped highways, I notice how the future we have been speeding towards for years is receding behind us. We must have crossed some boundary and hardly noticed; people we once hurried to greet are standing along the roadside waving goodbye, your grandfather in his ancestral cap, my mother holding…

for Laszlo There is nothing left on earth that's new so we repeat old stories, journey like a million others, commit the same limp mistakes, take ourselves where we can trace the folly of someone else's life and feel superior, Queen/King-for-a-Day. We are modern—so we know there's no such thing as gods with little g's,…

It's been empty for a number of years,      cracked in a hundred places by the chill and thaw of the seasons. Now a smelly,      thick, green water fills its deeper end where large, mottled frogs, before they ascend      from their mire, lay their eggs—a jelly that hovers like the dark dream of a will-      ful…

My sister Mary-Cucha was the first of the Garcias to fly. I would see her above my crib her arms stretched out, light bristling in her curly hair. When I could speak I asked my mother where Mary-Cucha had gone. “In the sky,” she would answer. “Your sister was frightened by something dark in the…

Think of the blackouts during the War. Whole cities Disappearing like flowers folding their petals at dusk As if each town Were lying down to sleep In the arms of lost and hidden cities; Sprawled beside Troy, nestled next to Pompeii, Fallen across the arm of Atlantis breathing like a current. And what is the…

I am five,      Wading out into the deep            Sunny grass, Unmindful of snakes      & yellowjackets, out            To the yellow flowers Quivering in sluggish heat.      Don't mess with me            'Cause I have my Lone Ranger Six-shooter. I can hurt      You with questions            Like silver bullets. The tall flowers in my dreams are…

Jonathan says our ferry will dock at 1 a.m. At this remote island and remain here For thirty minutes, time enough For a sulphur bath at the hot spring. The gate drops and we run up the landing Toward a shed with a splinter Of applejack-light leaking out Through the darkness around the door. We…

It's their not knowing how they must die. The emptiness of their beautiful eyes. The heat and damp and pulse of their breaths, the way joy seizes them like a miniature death— and no shame in it.