Poetry

Was it madness that enabled you to fall into the ocean—if you were “dancing” on the rocks as I’ve been told, it couldhave been loss of balance—we say that of the mad don’t we,I can see each taunting lift of foot, the bitten hands flailing,I can, off East Haven more than forty years passing each…

1. They sleep on their shadows,long for no one,their speech drifts weightlessthrough their lanes. Gold thread, fistfuls of barley,a jar of Aristaeus’s gold,an old woman’s needle,her pearly lace lining the harbor road. Taxis for Darnis awaiting passengers,Sudanese farmhands milling about,and into the bay, the sponge pickers go onflirting with death. You and I are two,I…

Like a pomegranate, I wore my garnets quietly. Nudelip, beige tongue. I took the shape of clouds passing by. I was a tool for divination—you used me to findwater & blamed me when I drank. We dreaded you together. Still, I kept my smile on, even whenyou hid the key to my mouth. I was…

Just there, deep in shadow, the peeling paint of an old door to a carriage                    house behind untrimmed cypress branches,a shade somewhere between turquoise and navy wrung by rain to                    namelessness,a color we can no longer locate on the spectrum, the lost blue of tenderness                    and sorrow overlain with exaltation,a door we walk past once in the gathering…

His beard’s still dark but a little grayer. I, too, have a gray hair or twotwisting through the dark ivy between my legs. Honestly, I’m surprisedhe recognizes me standing up. He looks well, fit, his smile as generousas I remember, all those times on my back staring up at a faded pictureof hot air balloons…

          Sometimes, we let ourselvesbelieve we’re talking to his ghost. Sometimes, we think memory, its rhyme.          How long can you stay           afloat? my sister askswhen he admits to paying his ex-girlfriend’s rent again. He doesn’t care          that she’s seeing other men           and avoids his calls—doesn’t care that he owes back-taxes and hasn’t held down a job in years.          He’s…

Where are the flying starsof my childhood? Evenings litlike a glitterball’s sparkle againstthe night’s dim walls. Their absenceis like aging: one less pulse each year. I want my childhood of darknessbedazzled again with shards of light—my tiny lighthouses, my suburbs of surprise—where the shadows of dogwoodsand crepe myrtles wink at me.Tell me I’ll never be…

DEFINE, meaning “the degree of distinctness in outline of an object, image, or sound,”          sound being some motion invisible to the eye, progenitor to an empire of echoes,          although empire implies dominion, a definition demanded from its subjects,          all of whom are subject to their own purpose, “one that may be acted upon,”          which is not, impossibly, all, “fully,…

I’m attracted to the em dash—that bridge across the void—a balance beam—a baton passed across thoughts—the sexiestbreak—the turntable’s tonearm before the groove kicks in—the “Electric Slide” of punctuation—(it’s electric!)—not an en dash or a hyphen—an expanded truth—playing the long game—the schemes between chess moves—all the small mercies—the giant oak on Corning Street toppling over a stone wall, tree branches…