Poetry

Purple, crumpled shut-ins, these scalloped flowersneither wrestle, nor do they crumble. Poet,may I call you Mother (since mine has died), orwill you reject me?

I don’t like moving, too,being moving, moving myselfand by myself through space;it means permeating in a new way, measuring the daydifferently, carrying, as if onmy back, heavy as a dressing table,my own image, what I want to do when I get there, dealingwith my things, what movesme and what doesn’t, to action—and so I avoid…

I do not know what to say but that there was a deersitting in the middle of the highway. She had been hit,but she was alive and folded like a drawing.She was looking at me from her place on the median.The traffic was filing around her and I could notstop. The traffic was filing around…

More than most, forthis I feelif I have itall is well:wrangled upinto a ball,handsome reelfrom wriggled scrawl,or lapping strandstwisted thin, thenturned aroundtheir spool or cone, inV’s, in X’s,so much there’sno need to thinkhow much is there.Soft, let loose, butcuts if taut, so,careful, snip thechosen spotto knot a knot orhang a bell,sew a book,secure a scroll,…

The problem is the metalmarks kinetic in my belly.The problem is their tinsel wings stick in my trachea.The problem is regurgitating everything I swallow.The problem, truly, is the feeling of my empty mouth.The problem is I have nothing to say about the warsor genocide except I cannot comprehend a godwho sheds mercy on those with…

The landlord was a blind man who rattled the front grillethe first of the month—or last, can’t remember, but alwaysit woke me, the rattling for the rent, his hand like a brokenwing shoved through a hole in the grille. He was vinyl blackand just as shiny. A glossy John Crow. Eyes milky marble,unblinking stare pinning…

I once heard someone say everythingyou think is not truth. Even now,in the winter no one expected,my friends are being rebornat an astonishing rate: the log crustedover with lichens, the unnaturalleatherleaf mahonia, the hermitthrush with her eggplant-seed belly.After a few seasons, the log will have turnedto powder, having given itselfto several colonies of mushrooms.And what…

I’m triggered by being triggered, my pain pains me, I’m upset to be upset, frustrated by my frustration, grieving over grief, outraged by my outrage, disgusted by disgust, elated by my elation, exhilarated by the exhilaration, ruptured by rapture, disbelieving disbelief, rejecting rejection, calmed by calm, having qualms about qualms, repulsed by repulsion, thinking my…

Too often I rememberbeing limber. Unfounded in a boundless sky.There has to be a way to rectify the unyielding. Ink on my hands,the portrait I’m drawing demands no poem. I’ve not earned the graceof metaphor-laced descriptions. My face, dark circles widening underneath my eyes,will not surprise your readers, compromise their status quo, make them ponder…