You let that drop, and I know where you’re from.I know the verbal tic of my hometown—the one I ran so hard from with my kid,some books, and mended pocketsful of hope. I seen it shrug off cornfields like a coat,lie bare and cold and calloused with concrete.I seen it lose steel jobs, oil jobs,…
I live in the basement of the lake.I live on the bottom of the moon.I pry her birch bark loose, grazefor centipedes that swim the heart-wood beneath. I burn the prisondown and climb the gate. Morningafternoon and night, I kiss my jaileron his thin white lips. I am two crowslaughing in a poison eucalyptus. I…
In the dark bedroom, moonlightthreads the latticed door.I hold out a bowl of warm noodlesfor Mother. She wipes droolfrom the corner of her mouth,rose-cotton scarf tied around her head.Blood moon bathes our feeton the cold granite floor.Begonia unfurls a leaf. In two weeks,she will be gone.All autumn I shall lie on her cot,absence swathing my…
Hearing the news scares her into wordslike boobs, then my girls comes bobbling out—but her daughter’s words are serious (diagnosis)and she tries to listen but just can’t keep herselffrom reminiscing about her hourglass figureand men she dated years and years beforewho called her Sweater Girl. Silence.Will this daughter give up? Or like the deershe sang about in church, crazed with thirst,crashing through…
For David Shapiro If you are happy you will be sadIf you are sad you can be happyIf you are happy Daddy says control yourselfIf you are happy Mommy wants to be happy tooIf Mommy is happy you must be sadIf you are sad Mommy feels betterIf Mommy feels better Daddy is happyIf Daddy is…
Through Hell and what he saw the dead one thereI wrote a poem of the dead one goingAnd who alive is more than that the deadOne going and who is less how he was ledThrough by a bird named Law like law all-knowingWhere all is anguish and guilt spoils the air And now to write again I ask…
Some turnto the kitchen sink,I prefer backyards.Perfect noonfor cleaning mackerel. No gloves.Squat low and leanforward. Fine drizzleon Moringa,scaling. Scatter of silver. Blood smear.Gutting innardsis more addictivethan love or tea.Spawning clouds of August. Last night,I dreamed of wakinginto you, lazilyinhaling monsoon.Moon seeding in my womb.
there is a welcome posture the sun does I wait for it hold myself against it all day hang a string on my ear with a note saying let’s get this place cracking your encouragement was everything at first I thought your tiny sponge was no match for my muddy window I want to be the friend who accepts your gifts sing with wind as though it is a duet then suddenly it is none of them write poems any more the spirit said don’t speak to me you have lost your position in my heart make a noise to get the mouse looking over here all gravity ever did was hold us down whether or not falling gets up in the middle of the night for a little falling in love or falling off a cliff I’m fine to never see them again but I do miss their poems he threw away the only recording of the poet moths circle the brightly lit head of the reporter telling us the body count of the latest war in the rot and filth of a landfill is the poet’s voice I cannot stand it my god picking through garbage I hear you poet-antidote keep singing I will find you please don’t stop singing for ten years I lived in my car people asked where are you going I always said I’m traveling away the wanderer the road knows the intestinal trans expatriate I met a man who feared termites though his house was made of stone I wrote on truck stop walls DEAR SLEEPWALKERS EVERY US TAXPAYER IS A WEAPONS DEALER in Mississippi I touched the pig’s heart in a jar for weeks I saw other worlds of clover could sense the romantic fusion of living and dying in a frying pan left with a divulgence what else is paradise losing if not our trust
I want to thank you dear sister, dear clouder and mister,for your rain and your dew, your dew and your rainthat make so much flourish on my arid terrain, my robe of all flowers, my wells and my cisterns. Dear Body of Water, dear evaporation systems,I want to thank you for your fogs and your drizzles,your…
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