Poetry

My mother has never died yet.My father has died oh so many years ago.I have never died yet though I have not died from trying.What is the most profound tragedy that can befall a family?And the dream answered: The death of the primary wage-earner.My sister has never died yet though she believes she has been…

a delicate box. The child inside it. It’s okay to not think abouthow the child came to be in the box. It’s okay to focus solelyon what the child offers: the sound of fireweed bending in wind,yesterday’s pages torn from their binding, a small hand. Yesterdaythere was no sign of the child. No warning between…

“What’s for you won’t go by you,” he told me, the great, recalcitrant songwriter so heavy-browed with doubt and kindness. I was eighteen and had taken a Greyhound from New York to Nashville to find him, my corduroys indistinguishable from my self. That whole wolf-on-skates year his music had saved me, made me feel something…

I found a boat tied upat the water’s edge,rocking, rope frayed, oarsbanging in their locks. At home, you neverknew what mighthappen. A surprisea minute, they say. In the distancedark clouds, no traceof the other shore.It might have been wise to havebrought a compassand life jacket,to have packed a lunch.

We’d only just begun to scratch the floors with our own furniture, unfold the box flaps  and hang the walls to look like our walls in the old apartment: familiar faces, fruits.  Then we heard it, the long scrapes in deep  grooves overhead. It came from the devil’s  peak, after we’d turned the bedroom into the samedark as the…

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…

Not the rosecarpet, nor the steady breathof the ceiling fan, but the patchof sunlight squeezing through.You’ve been here before.You’re early. Unlike last time—stuckin traffic. The otherpassengers in the Keke Napepdid what people stuck in traffic do: smileat strangers, tell the driver to change the radio station, crackknuckles, complain, fall asleep, wake & eat the agbalumosprobably…

His smile stretches wide to hide          a familiar, hollowed-out pain,minstrelled, ready to play          on command.How differently he’s portrayed          from others in his day—butternut brown, a burnished glow          lights his torso.Gold vest and grey frock coat,          pre-Civil War, dapper.In this version of the story:          he’s not as a slaveworking in a field but a musician            holding bones/ivory/woodin his loose fists, fingers curled          against his…