Poetry

At the Musée Gustave Moreau I looked at all the surfaces while you explained the stories.        At the base of the spiral stairs we bared our eyes at Les Chimères, a painting pale and unfinished.        What a heavy task he set himself to finish with color and form all the empty limbs, I…

If you think of it, every opportunity is last minute. You aren’t great—just the best last. Handed a brink, most maybes die in the back of a throat before lips can dawn. Folk like answers; they want their coupons clipped. Maybe my neck isn’t straight as a ladder—each breath is still its own rung. The…

Apparently I am this crying guy, eyes full of analogue world in the gap between olive leaves, acknowledging the sea, acknowledging all is fucked as kids and philosophers say and know best, but okay, for a silver-leafed span, storied but brief in the gap between olive branch and grief, I make this noise. It is…

“See, one day, not now, we will be gone from this earth where we know the gladiolas.” —Aracelis Girmay But not today. today there is no funeral & no need for a burial shroud & a casket. in this room we are alive—each one of us tending the flowers that bloom on the small earth…

Look                                         even birds sing in mourning. For the first time in years, a dove in the front yard builds nest, quietly patterns her return with bundles, weaves tiny broken things in work of a home. Whereas even the desert still offers itself, a pursuit unfolding unlike our bodies, just constellations or chain link fences. The…

How long would it take to grow an Eastern White Oak eighty feet tall in your own backyard? And how long might it take to burn one all the way down? Could you shoot that on your phone and let your battery run down until the ash at your feet is cool to touch? Even…

Does the rabbit know the fox has also turned to snow? You don’t raise pigs for milk. Wind pursues what it has blown away. Rain falls gently on the city and its sirens. We’re more water than dust. Every umbrella is a big top. And childhood is a name for a visionary state. If I…

It’s what the phlebotomists always say, gushing  when I slide up my sleeve, straighten my arm  to boast bulging channels evergreen  like spruce, leafy green like a spring mix,  they bubble with delight palpating  each protuberance, each tubular translucence  swimming just beneath my skin, I suppose  they are, perfectly plump for puncture,  these outcurved creeks,…

My mother has never died yet. My father has died oh so many years ago. I have never died yet though I have not died from trying. What is the most profound tragedy that can befall a family? And the dream answered: The death of the primary wage-earner. My sister has never died yet though…