Poetry

  • Breath of Wind

    It pushes its way through, a luminous thing. Cactus, radiant with small blunt thorns, sharply glistening column. But also, in a room without walls, a load-bearing wall, a mast without sail on a hovering boat. Straight as a nail,  shadowless.   It’s my mother’s picture, she took it in the woods. The column was found…

  • The Mute Child

    Translated from the Spanish by Jenny Minniti-Shippey   The child searches for his voice. (The king of the crickets had it.) In a drop of water, the child searched for his voice.   I don’t want it in order to speak; I’ll make with it a ring that will carry my silence on his tiny…

  • FIRST MONTREAL TOUR

    From a series documenting several years (1980–2021) of multi-day cycling tours.   Slaterville Springs, NY – Ithaca – Syracuse – Seaway Trail – Ogdensburg – Saint-Zotique, QC – Montreal. Home on Amtrak. October 1980; 334 miles. Via Gitane.   Pushed up from the south on the Seaway Trail—New York State Route 3—along Lake Ontario, crossing…

  • Disambiguation of Miriam

    Ask her if she is cold. Ask her if she needs to hide. Fold her into a rectangle and slip her into your breast pocket. She will record the auditory data regarding the condition of the heart. Motherdreaming. Mother turning into sleep. Mother changing the channel. Mother turning underwater.   M mostly becomes sunflower head bending…

  • Grace Notes

    ghost: to die   ghost: to haunt   ghost: to disappear from all messaging   ghost: when sunlight bleaches a photograph   ghost: another walks out of a room but leaves a perfume   ghost: begin with the G guttural, the tongue lifts to hit the back palate, then the mouth rounds itself around the…

  • BEETHOVEN’S GONE MAD NOW

    Translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton Macpherson   His late style is called baffling, a slap in the face for a public ardent as a pair of worn-out shoes.   But the music is tired of reconciliation and seeks refuge in his rage. Let it grind, let it chafe. As when existence contracts in…