Poetry

If 1 is the name of your best friend from sixth grade, which, for no reason, you remember right now, standing in your socks on the cold tile of the examination room   and 2 is finding your car in the parking lot later and noticing how dirty it has become—the back seat littered with…

One thing’s for sure; in the future, the morgues are going to be full of tattoos. It’s going to be more colorful, and easier to manage: “Hey Jeff, move Dolphin-Shoulder-Girl to Tray Seven.” “And get Mr. Flames-On-My-Neck out for the doc.”   In Italy the tabloids are talking about the “Ambulenza di Morte,” The Ambulance…

You are your father’s broad back                          re-writ in small script. Your feet, like his, grasp the soil, confident       the planet will never spin too fast                      to throw you off.     I never was so sure. I spent most of my childhood watching                 the clouds                 move while I stayed still.  …

si vis pacem, para bellum— If you want peace, prepare for war.     Today I slammed the door so hard the house fell behind me.   If any ring remains, of rubble & consequence, my salt heart   agape, an oh to construct the shape of the whole just before—   This was my…

Before she died, my mother practiced turning herself into stone. Now she sits—a rock on my father’s grave, six feet above his reach. Each spring he punches a hole in his roof, sending up a riot of yellow flowers to tempt her into softening. The tendrils of his need claw the air, grope to touch…

I don’t wear long dresses because bad things always happen when I do. For Kai’s wedding, he hit his head skinny dipping afterwards on the cement by the pool, ended up in the ER while his bride slept, her father an inappropriate Gemini questioning me all night long, sober like the righteous lion. I wore…

Everything threatens—                     benches meant for children occupied by old men   who clutter the playground                     and interrupt the slides where a schizophrenic takes   interstellar dictation.                     I’m looking for a way out— not a way down   and play the game                     of sidewalk juxtapositions: cons versus dot coms   crazies versus kids                     in superhero shirts….

The boy won’t fall asleep                     without books, pictures             before bed of polar bear             who never leave a scent of blood against the ice,             watered down tales of jolly             rotten pirates setting sail.             The cannons shoot coconuts.          …

We have changed only in our teeth all of us look vaguely 19 but hard-lived for 19 I overheard     it was a half-joke like your daughter she’s so easy to love   to my father     and we all laugh     back home a hurricane is shaking the water and even here     rain     you look a little like a morgue     cold skin and…