Poetry

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.—My memory of my father’s voice message Up the sky-escalator                                             to meet his maker.An angel measures                              the draperies of my dad’s inscape                                             with tailor’s tape, palpates the spot                              near his unfaith.Rate your life’s pain.                                             Weighty, dad answers.A brain paint-peeled &                              snakebit at the end, he says.                                             Like freebasing…

One father culled talons from an eagle’s claw                     and strung them around our necks.  Another father watched a dogwood tree burn slowly                     through the night. The yellowjacket froze  in the space between our faces, two numb fingers                     brushing the edge of a sharp tack.  You spoke softly—each word blinking hard                     then opening wide its soft eyes, baring  for the…

I’ve got an arrow here.Loving the hand that sent itI the dart revere.—Emily Dickinson If it is attention that condemns me,then attention may absolve me: you pierced me cleanly,the hollow daylight proving I never flinched, a movementwhich implies anticipation. I held still. I held onto another love. I turned my back to openings—to doorwaysyou may…

Keep swallowing. You’re being poisoned,but you have the upper hand,so choke it down your torched throat.You know what it meansto be on the banks of the Scioto Riverwith Josh and Nick and a plastic bottle,the kind cyclists tuck onto their bikeframes, filled with every kind of liquoryour parents kept. Who would notice a shot or…

        What are we doing in the world?        In the world,where the children        are playing world.         Where they drivetheir little toy cars        and trucks upand down         the steep imaginary         roadsof the mind—         maneuvering around        the oncoming traffic that barrels         down around endless hairpin         turns— What are we doing         in the world? Where our neighbor’s         girls operate on their dolls—         Having laid them outin the late        sideways light of Spring        on a tousled,pink quilt         on the grass, they amputate         a…

Since I forget the namesof my lovers, my favorite dog,the flowers and constellationsI walk on earth like a spy from silence. In Walmart I forget my change.In sex I forget to cry out.In a dream I don’t know when to wake. I read endlessly, underlining every third word,but it is only the book of night…

A lone snow tire rests twelve feet up a tree.Ten years of negativesscattered a mile down the riverbank. The leather sofa where we’d first kissedspotted in someone’s yard.It’s just stuff, he kept saying. I wanted to believe him.We were still getting to know each other then,learning how to handle something heavy. Stay positive? Be quiet?…

Day one of Marketing 101 is Don’t sell a product.Sell an experience. Benjamin Moore’s mostpopular nursery shades are forest floorand polar bear and furthermore,                    for lingering before heronand muslin and lichen, which falllike snow in the paint display, I mustowe and owe. I know my time is money.My home loan looms, laps its bowlof sweat equity….

In what was probably an interview with Krista Tippett,or maybe it was Rachel Zucker’s conversation with Carl Phillips,the question arose if we are the same personwe once were (always are) or if something changes to a pointof no return. I made it my mission to returnto Prospect Park after four years away. I want to…