Poetry

I had torn the quads in both legs and had to be poured into the back seat so when we parked at Home Depot, I was being slid out on a plastic sheet when a red sports car pulled in next to us, the door swung open and a hand cast out a folded wheelchair…

Mom has already made arrangements for a spot inside the churchyard wall among the old Yankee slates, some fallen, and the granites from foreign places, tilted by frost. A mason sets them straight again each spring. Perennials for the formal beds accepted with gratitude; no other plantings allowed. Cut flowers may be laid on the…

You’d think he was nervous the way he fits and starts. His skittery dodges, dipping below the visible, make us wait           for a scratch on our eye which comes to show he’s gone again elsewhere. How does he find his way? you said, and I saw night close in           like a room with…

What is essential as breath reduced to a squabble about moral parity to hold a brief for the party that orders death. Moral parody: ours is but to cook, serve, clear, speak when spoken to. * We will not swell the glory chorus, slaughter calling to slaughter like lovers possessed. Nor will we turn away….

More than peace and cypresses, emboldened hares at the field’s edge, Father, I love gallantry, tenacity, the sanguine heart before the ledge: the artist questing and failing— the feet of bested Icarus plunging into the sea’s crest— the artist triumphing: a page of fire from the book of heroes. More than light-hooved gazelles, views from…

With my black pointed hood and my raggedy black gown, its tatters like the Wicked Witch might sport before she hops on her broom to write the sky in black smoke, Surrender Dorothy!—I could be holding out my hands for a trick or treat, like any American child on a Halloween eve, if not for…

It was in that year the dog arrived On the farm, and I appeared in his eyes, A speck because I was made of flesh, Not fur, not tail, not paws thick as leather. I bent down, patted his coat, And I asked, Is it time now? The old stray was reddish brown, His breathing…

We will weave through the labyrinth of headstones to clear the patch of soil where you rest, to plant a tall palm with leaves that know that north sea breeze, to roast a suckling pig. The blood of this pig will mingle with your bones, tickle your limbs, awake the bomba y plena pulse. We…

And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son I have lived in tents and often, at midday, have I parted the tent-clothes and gone inside with the light of day so blinding my eyes that my wife spoke to me out of darkness, saying, Take this dish, and eat. I have walked among…