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…
“Even if you are not ready for the day / it cannot always be night.”—Gwendolyn Brooks Even if you’re not ready for anything Black, it cannot always be white.Even if you’re not ready for the women, it cannot always be the men.Even if you’re not ready for the spectrum, it cannot always be a binary.Even…
I came from the center of a coal-rock.I hatched when a bird built a nestfrom its straw hair and sat on mewith its whole heavy heart. * One evening, the lightbulb hangingfrom the kitchen ceiling began to flicker.The bulb threw its swinging light at the kettle,which began to look like a speckled egg. The kettle woke to the lightbulb’s despairing voice at…
Captive air, captive words, only eyes scan the world.Broken doll with no tongue, little grace still remains.Angry words, all she hears. Selfish tears, she is told. Captive air, heavy lungs, innocent mind holding shame.Little girl, turn the tears into clear, lucid words.Let them shine into light; let them glow in the dark.
You’ve warned me about this, my machine—the threat of linear stains on paper, floodingover letters when you’re copying my pages.Your glassed-in mind is usually mimetic.But when something goes wrong, you’ll startto leak a gray scrim, as when a monk spilled wineon his inked annotation in the thirteenth century,freeing what I have to see as ghosts…
Called widow makers because their branches fallduring droughts. They sever their own branches to conserve water, to save the whole tree. As if cuttingoff a hand to save a whole body. How does the tree decide what to drop? This one dropped two limbs,one onto a car. It only took the men a day to remove the…
No matter where I went todayI was not Michael.I was not even the shadowof my middle name.No name took my place,no name was asked.When I sat on a benchthinking of you, tryingto see your face,I was not Michael—I knew because the rainchose to fall nearbut not upon me,and it wasn’t to makean exception.People were walking…
Friday—first day of fall Two friends, two beers each. One has just held the hand of theother’s dying mama, regaling her with tales of her son’smisadventures. He’s moving to Houston the next day, far intothe flooding swamp. Mama is quiet, peaceful, pain-free. Go, shesays, go have a good time. After the two beers the friends…
My roommate was having an argumentwith his girlfriend: It’s the wrong key. No it’s not. Well it isn’t working. Once you and I had disagreements like that,I ended it. But there was a pointwhen I had a codeto your front door. People had the wrong idea about us.No socks on the stairswas one of your…
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