Poetry

After Pablo Neruda This piranha in your poem,this river-missile drawn to fleshI once dangled from a fishing line.I know you won’t believe me,but when I held its flapping body to my ear,it moaned.The piranha moaned,like the medicine man moansof a riverhe believes is an anaconda,a sibilant serpentswallower of men. In turbid watersthe piranha sigh,and baring…

For every forest, there is a pig screamingout like a child as the butcher’s knife popsopen its throat. For every bucket of pig’s blood,a bucket of rainwater, saved to hydratea spring garden. For every Amish-horse-and-buggysign on a country road, a teenager exhalespot smoke into a pillow in her parents’ basement.For every time I see you…

In the stories it’s different: grief,like the dark, lifts eventually—a tenderness inside which, with allthe clarity of bells when for once theyring like nothing but the ringing bellsthey are, it can seem that at last you’ve gotten away with something, likea horse you’ve stolen that, now, lighterthan ash on a sudden wind, or any windat…

Before it’s too late—neck-     Grope this life’s most beautifulMonsters until all of this disorder Shapes sacred. Until flocks     Of balloon animals—thousandsOf them—drop from the diamond- Blue sky. Purple hippos & clownfish.     Ticks like hubcaps & backpack-Size wolves. A dancer will find A carved-in-butter replica     Of The Garden of Earthly DelightsSprawling the Landing Strip’s parking Lot. Fingerprints will cloud     The windows…

Of the many things that he used to say to me, there are twoI’m certain of: You taste like a last less-than-long summer afternoonby the shore just before September; and You’re the kind of betrayal, understand, I’ve been waiting for,all my life. When did remembering stop meaningto be lit from within—bodily— and the mind, briefly flickeringagain…

the barber’s best shears, Dona Rosa’s toucan,all the allamanda blossoms, the brown phantom and his white shadow. The cuckold never came home,but his pants basked on the courthouse roof for weeks. Hippolyta sank. The cemetery swelled. The original Christabove the church vanished along with the toothless nun. We found the demi-virgin strangled in her hammock.When…

In a waiting room at the Kresge Eye Center,my fingers trace the outline of money folded into pocketand I know the two hundred fifty dollars thereis made up of two hundred forty-five I can’t afford to spendbut will spend on a calm voice to tell mehow I am to be repaired. But legally blind and…

This endless room is deep blue, dark red.I’m wearing my Valentino gown, vintage silhouettebut hand-stitched for me. It’s the same purpleas my favorite twilight, just as I requested. Everyone is here—I can see across the waythe black-rooted starlets and reality queensdrinking acai Cosmos. And I can see the disgracedcongressman studying his notes at the bar,…

I shouldn’t be, but I’m thinkingAbout the woman who got shotFighting over that sweat-soakedHeadscarf Teddy Pendergrass threwInto the crowd at one of thoseShows he put on for “LadiesOnly” the year I was born. HowMany women reachedBefore the tallest two forgotTheir new fingernails matchedPurses and shoes? I’m no good.I thought I’d be bored with menAnd music…