Poetry

  • The Budget of the Soul

    A homeless woman at the reference desk asked, “Am I an angel, or merely a supernatural creature?” She was agitated, all the muscles of her narrow face in nervous motion, and I was too startled to answer. A man I worked with, who often ignored patrons for his own reading, rose and stepped forward to stand…

  • The Dogs in the Neighborhood

    The dogs in the neighborhood are barking.At the end of his lead our young dogstalls in darkness between yards and digs inhis two-year weight. He has a scent—God is in the garden.I crouch and point my light. Characters run across yards with pumpkin bucketsand faces in masks or marked with paint.This is what trembling feels…

  • Pavlov was the Son of a Priest

    which is a biographical fact only ever statedwhen discussing a man of either unrivaledrighteousness or extreme wickedness. Imagine this: He never once used a bellin his saliva experiments, unless you countthe plink of kibble falling from his dogs’ surgically opened throats, and why wouldyou want to count that? I admit I often tellyou about the…

  • Mementomori.com

    Lugging a corpse with you everywhere you went.Strapped to your back.Slumped in a wheelchair.Dragged on a sled or pulled in a red wagon.The corpse keeping you focused on your mortality.Reminding you that ultimately you’re just a corpse. At first it was a fringe thing.Hipsters only.Then celebrities got involved.Hauling their corpses to the Oscars and whatnot.Corpses…

  • Note

    He said he would hang himselfso as not to make a mess. But he was still there the next day.And the next. And the next. He wrote the note for the copson a page he tore from my favorite book of poems. That’s all I saw of it—in absence—the ripped-out page like a jagged fin…

  • Anything Can Happen with Wolves

    I don’t remember wearing itto school or after dark to the Halloween partywhere apples for bobbing floated in tubs.I don’t remember staring in the mirror to admiremyself in the half- mask, white blouse and blackskirt, the fabled red hood gaudy with sequins.My father paid for my first store-bought costume. Whochose? Why her? There are no…