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 laterand noticing how dirty it has become—the back seat litteredwith plastic wrappers and sales receipts—and…

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 of Death;a medic who was…

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.                           In this way I was always an observer….

si vis pacem, para bellum—If you want peace, prepare for war. Today I slammed the door so hardthe house fell behind me. If any ring remains, of rubble& consequence, my salt heart agape, an oh to constructthe shape of the whole just before— This was my war:I did not shrink to fit remarks landing around…

Before she died, my motherpracticed turning herself into stone.Now she sits—a rock on my father’s grave,six feet above his reach. Each springhe punches a hole in his roof,sending up a riot of yellow flowersto tempt her into softening. The tendrilsof his need claw the air, grope to touch her,but she will have none of it….

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 cementby the pool, ended up in the ER while his bride slept, her father aninappropriate Gemini questioning me all night long, sober like therighteous lion. I wore a long dress and…

Everything threatens—                    benches meant for childrenoccupied by old men who clutter the playground                    and interrupt the slideswhere 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.Side-eyed I watch untrimmed hedges,                    listen for brush lurkersif the volume of footsteps turns up….

The boy won’t fall asleep                    without books, pictures            before bed of polar bears            who never leave a scentof blood against the ice,            watered down tales of jolly            rotten pirates setting sail.            The cannons shoot coconuts.            If there’s a pistol, it’s polished,      …

We have changed only in our teeth all of us look vaguely 19 but hard-lived for 19I 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 waterand even here     rain     you look a little like a morgue     cold skin and clean     clean gown     lace like…