Poetry

When I walked past your house last nightyou’d been dead a week. A crate was tippedagainst the porch, the lights were off,the awning pitched a little further north.It reminded me of the time a friendasked me to come over while her catwas put to sleep. Rafferty—his silky legsagainst me as he passed. Like a dark…

The long stretch of green flattens into the horizon.          Forever and ever, he seems to say, but it is nothing, it is not him, it is only my mind, speaking into the silence.          In the distance, the goats wait patiently, the sun tilts patiently, the sky breathes its steady rays. We are letting time slip.          We are letting…

The bruised-blue sky, the blown-breath willow, and goldenrod fallen leaves woven with acrylic yarn into your best, most beautiful sweater: the fake wool woodscape felt soft on your skin, no stinging or deep itch, a scene wrapped around your teenage rib cage—all angle tones and autumn. You would wear nothing underneath, felt only the inside-out…

after Attila József In a garden of my own makingThe trees and I will soon be waking.Shyly, I’ll while away the hours­Planting seeds and tending flowers. And so I’ll sow and so I’ll reap,Planting, planting in my sleep.So what if all the flowers are weeds?Don’t all of us derive from seeds? I’ll drink my milk,…

There was no will. Only footwork. In sunless hospital roomsI played card games with men twice my age. Say it wasn’tabout falling but the gated terrain’s arrival after the jump,then I landed not in heaven but in Redding where I tradedmy blue jeans & black boots for a dotted white gown. Here,the men & I…

Maybe it means somethingwhen Jeremiah of the Shopping Cartrolls his chariot across this monster parking lotto ask about my soul again. Maybe I should climb aboard this time—we’ll break Wonder Bread,sip Mountain Dew,toss twelve-packs to the children. Maybe I’ll be a part of some miracle—feel for once,memory resisting her adjectives.Hear dreams changing their minds.Every wheel…

I part the wild horse’s mane      the arms rise and knees sinkand outside the window car hoods      line the DQ parking lotmy knees sink and elbowsbend as I’m told energy held inthe muscle is memory forming      but when I rise the nightdoes not alleviate the heat outside      the hotel where I did not expect      to be — not lost and…

I must have been sitting at the wrong table—the conversation was about chilblains,someone insisted only the British knowwhat they are—who among us had hadthem, those red eruptions of welts onhands and feet shivering in the damp cold?No one.(I wanted to change the subject so I didn’t saymy father had chilblains when he swamin our icy…