Poetry

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 person we once were (always are) or if something changes to a point of no return. I made it my mission to return to Prospect Park after four…

                              We open Madlibs again, the ferry late the third hour,                and you choose “xiphoid,” how you did twice before. I’m pretty sure                               we are never getting on the boat, I said, We could play again, you said. Along the breakwaters                               seagulls land like tourists, at this time of day,                                              bloated with complaint—                               how silent must…

Neither pained by blame or seduced by praise, I kept my soul taut as a drawn bowstring, the last of ten children tithed to the church. At nine, buried alive  for the rest of my long life in service to Christ. I was his  bride forever in bloom, braids unbound, white lace veil grazing the…

At the Musée Gustave Moreau I looked at all the surfaces while you explained the stories.        At the base of the spiral stairs we bared our eyes at Les Chimères, a painting pale and unfinished.        What a heavy task he set himself to finish with color and form all the empty limbs, I…

If you think of it, every opportunity is last minute. You aren’t great—just the best last. Handed a brink, most maybes die in the back of a throat before lips can dawn. Folk like answers; they want their coupons clipped. Maybe my neck isn’t straight as a ladder—each breath is still its own rung. The…

Apparently I am this crying guy, eyes full of analogue world in the gap between olive leaves, acknowledging the sea, acknowledging all is fucked as kids and philosophers say and know best, but okay, for a silver-leafed span, storied but brief in the gap between olive branch and grief, I make this noise. It is…

“See, one day, not now, we will be gone from this earth where we know the gladiolas.” —Aracelis Girmay But not today. today there is no funeral & no need for a burial shroud & a casket. in this room we are alive—each one of us tending the flowers that bloom on the small earth…

Look                                         even birds sing in mourning. For the first time in years, a dove in the front yard builds nest, quietly patterns her return with bundles, weaves tiny broken things in work of a home. Whereas even the desert still offers itself, a pursuit unfolding unlike our bodies, just constellations or chain link fences. The…

How long would it take to grow an Eastern White Oak eighty feet tall in your own backyard? And how long might it take to burn one all the way down? Could you shoot that on your phone and let your battery run down until the ash at your feet is cool to touch? Even…