Poetry

I shimmied my way up the thick vine like a cord plugged into heaven—electricity crackled down the line between my hands, reflexes tightening the fingers—I took it as a message from the gods, onwards! So up I went clapping hands ankles knees to the breeze as the cord arced left and right in the sky—…

Moments connect like iron filings on a magnet, Not by the clock moving forward But by likenesses of mood; the way the sun Strikes a plate glass window At dawn unites all such dawns, the way love Brightens the face of your lover after Even the briefest absence, the same Knotty dilemma, whether day or…

In her book, she said the guiding principle was guarding against irreparable losses; she’d managed to live so as to avoid any major cause of regret. Anyone who’s done that, raise your hand: you’re excused from this poem. As for us who remain, let’s go around the circle and list our regrets. For the stuporous,…

Corpses push up through thawing permafrost, as I scrape salmon skin off a pan at the sink; on the porch, motes in slanting yellow light undulate in air. Is Venus at dusk as luminous as Venus at dawn? Yesterday I was about to seal a borax capsule angled up from the bottom of a decaying…

I was waiting like a saint before the era of saints as she searched the racks for just the right threads. I was wondering after a hundred years, which is the body and which the clothes, although I would never ask her this. I was staring at the girls behind the window when she emerged…

On the stage Robert Schumann is getting drunk With tempestuous love. You remember what it is to listen to     passionate Nineteenth-century music, a clamor of argument and struggle Invoking the old gods, thunderbolt and hurricane, At the moment of their dying, and here in the lightning Is Clara whose father forbids her to marry…

The night is busy with the growth of stars. Above us peaceful. Shiyáázh, my son, fusses in his cradleboard. The protective rainbow shaped by his father arches over his face to protect him. In the dark sand below Monster Slayer’s archenemy rises again to pull us off this rock where we’ve taken refuge since winter’s…

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…