Poetry

  • Linea Nigra

    When I look down at my belly, the line therelooks back. Straight as a snake measuring its prey.Twice I’ve watched my midline muster stripeand thicken. Become open parenthesis, primed to holdthe past tense on display. What kind of magic bloomsa scar before the skin ruptures? I continue to findthe single wings of nine-spotted moths, monarchs.Stained…

  • Pen

    I try not to usea pen that’s too special,writing insteadwith whatever’s at hand,      in this case a penfrom George and Ken’sCollision, whereI had my hood repaired.      After paying the deductible,I wasn’t leaving therewithout a pen,so I slipped this one into my pocketas George—or was it Ken?—printed the receipt.It writes quite nicely,          gliding across the pageof…

  • Steeple Beyond Repair

    How did the people realizethe steeple needed repair? They prayed below for what stood above.They hired a steeplejack to go and see. Before descending he took a lookat the towers of Boston to the north and skyward at contrails of flights.He paused to consider the damage. They prayed against the worst they could imagine.They imagined…

  • Ode to Retinol

    You’re kept in capsules on the bathroom counter, a synthetic strain of vitamin A, sealedfor potency. Your purpose is to shieldthe face from signs of aging. Over-the-counter lacks the power existing in medical grade— though too much, over time, can blur the vision, incite a kind of skin-peeling conditionor frail the bones. Your purest form betrayed      the man who…

  • Melancholia

    Before your birth,                   I marked you as my own,the way I marked                    your mother before hers.Inscribed on every                    cell of every bone,the standard of my family                    never blurs.I coil between the                    makings of your bedand in the small hours                    whisper you awake.I poison every                    sentence in your headand all those comforts                    other people take.Eat salmon, buy a doodle,                    down the pillsthe doctor tenders…

  • A Man and a Woman

    Translated from the Spanish by Pablo Medina A man and a woman walk down the streetlaughing. They make plans.They had a grand time in the hotel where they made loveand they laugh, make another date for tomorrow. Life is wonderful.Tomorrow he’ll be laid out in a funeral home one hourbefore their tryst (the scaffoldingbroke loose…

  • Around here

    Down at the beach.The lake trying to wash the moon off its back.The moon trying to ride the horse of the lake.Me lighting a candle and sticking it in sand.Another. Making a circle for the windto burn its fingers on. For the moonto read a flickering elegy to itself.The infinite same syllable of the surf.Is…

  • That Halloween 

    We were downing cheap red wine at a barcalled Library   Books free for the takingThe carafe like a blood-filled IV bagI opened a book on palmistry   LifelinesWhen my words began to slur you took me to Mickie-Dee’s   A ghoul was thereand the grim reaper   Masks on every tableI saw bones in the…