Poetry

Outside the white cottage, a half-dozen chairs set out. A run of rocky fields washed by starlight. Full moon rising off the cliffs cutting a path to the islands. Inside the cottage, the sounds of children quieting themselves. The slow scrape and rattle of chairs dragged across a linoleum floor. Last stir of footsteps fading…

I watched the young couple walk into the tall grass and close the door of summer behind them, their heads floating on the golden tips, on waves that flock and break like starlings changing their minds in the middle of changing their minds, I saw their hips lay down inside those birds, inside the day…

We’re newcomers to an old place. The house was built in 1860 (so we think); since then, the Portuguese fishermen and the faded, artsy bohemians have come and started now to go, replaced by “guppies” driving Lexuses. Our street is lined with lindens, home to chickadees that play in the elaborate display of whirligigs, birdbaths,…

He lunged for the shut-off switch when he heard the scream. But the brutal five-inch teeth on the rotating drum, designed to excavate the coal face, had already destroyed helmet and hair, scalp and brain. Its rotation diminishing now, the carbide-tipped cutter bits dripping with the miner’s mistake. The noise declining as the massive drum,…

Mon petit chou,                         no more great vows are said. Can’t save, extinguish, master, or attain— My gusto blown to bits. The carpenter shaves a door, below his breath Sings I got daisies in green pastures, I got my girl, who could ask for anything more? The gutters overflow and eat concrete. From upper decks,…

The king is murdered and his daughter, Mis, goes mad, growing fur and killer claws, escaping into the woods. She is tamed by Dubh Ruis, a harp player. Marrying her, he becomes king. —Irish legend   Don’t touch me, don’t come near. I’ll shred your flesh from bone. Don’t even stare. I can smell you…

Lebanon, Nebraska She stares through the window to the garden gate, guarded by Thunderbirds, one on each side, the road leading out to the highway. I’m waiting until I don’t love you, she answers. Puts her cup on its hook. Impossible to dry anything. Dishes, clothes. Your cheek where the cat licks it clean. So…

for Jeff Male (1946–2003)   When I cough, people duck away, afraid of the coal miner’s disease, the imagined eruption of blood down the chin. In the emergency room the doctor gestures at the X-ray where the lung crumples like a tossed poem. You heard me cough, slipped off your coat and draped it with…

Don’t look up, because the ceiling is suffering some serious violations of the electrical code, the whole chaotic kelplike mess about to shower us with flames. I think I can render this clearly enough— Bert’s saxophone resting between his knees and propped against the wheelchair’s seat where his body keeps shape-shifting— he’s Buddha then Shop-Vac…