Poetry

Neither pained by blameor seduced by praise, I kept my soul taut as a drawnbowstring, the last of ten children tithed to the church.At nine, buried alive  for the rest of my long lifein service to Christ. I was his  bride forever in bloom, braidsunbound, white lace veil grazing the floor, whisperingwives scandalized—dry husks unsuited…

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…

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…