Article

Song

for Leonidas Zenakos Mama Crow makes her nest with feathers and twigs Mama crow counts her eggs and finds some missing Mama Crow preens her neck Mama Crow bleeds her breast -her husband drags out a corpse crowing “Lunchtime, lunch!” At 5 she has her coffee at 7 meat-pie at 8 she builds prisons at…

There Are So Many Fatherless Children Around

“I never could stand you too long,                              don’t you know,”      a definite blockage                        concrete application. The Graces are three Negro                        bims walking down Columbus Ave.      or a woman’s laughter from                        Shaker Heights or Santa Barbara.      He never could forgive himself,            …

In June

The old man wasn’t thumbing but I picked him up. He wasn’t growing a beard, just didn’t shave and his sack, Army duffle and white, bulged with all he owned. He apologized three times for the space he was taking and he hated women. Story after story he told of waitresses who said no when…

Five Women

Five women, talking while spring came: petals of the hand; the whispering of rain. One talked of loneliness; sudden alarm: four startled deer leapt into the distance. One measured the spirit the length of the night, a seismograph charting the rising of tremors. One of her husband thought always/his absence, her heart sheathed in grief,…

Taking Chances

There was nothing left to consume except epsom salt and water and, as the box of epsom salt was labeled USE EXTERNALLY, we knew that we were taking a chance. But, we mixed the salt with the water and sipped it down. Immediately there were vomitings, followed by some deaths. However, the act was not…

Ghost in a Field of Mint

(For Sister Madeline DeFrees) The old man on the prison work release gang hoeing asphalt followed us to Wilkeson and those cyrillic graves, to Carbanado and that one long empty street, Voight’s Creek and then Kapowsin and our picnic in a field of mint. Wherever we went, old haunts I wanted you to see, he…

Backtrack

— JB, H & Mr. B This is the death of water, the sky gone bad; This is the wall of blurred names; This is the drop of wax, the shined shoe; This is the noise, the wardrobe of no address — And this is the shirt, bone shirt, chalk and chalk dust, Its coat,…