Poetry

  • Surrender

    Moons falling, invisible hours, my son                                                                               never leaves                                                                     our nest—when the house                                                                              is quiet, it’s most   dangerous. The air deflates to flat, a flag                                               cloaking the rooms. It scares me— this silence—his teenage shadow                                                                  beneath my door, he pauses, moves            on. His footsteps patter                                               and fade, distant like gunfire                                                                                      on the horizon. His noises muffled behind walls—a…

  • God’s Horsefly

    First, you carry no rider. It is to sting and eat sweat, this life, but more itis to live near windows mostly in quiet, or to wait for the fast opening,and when it comes, I want to climb down from myself. I want to leavego the bridle. So I have started watching, standing at the…

  • Young Sirens

    Twitter: If you had a mermaid phase as a kidyou’re probably bisexual now How did I not understandwhen I swam with my anklescrossed to make a finor when I askedmy friend to touch my arm,my skin? She wrote love you xoon my ribcage in black pen.All summer we hidin my family’s camperbehind the daisy curtainsand it…

  • Flow

    From the roof of the horse barn, shinglesof ice begin their irreversible skid.Hoofprints frozen last December appearfreshly stamped in muddy earth. It’s been winter so long, he fears the thaw.What will become of the shadow-selfthat glided beside him, after the Chevywas parked at the Marathon station, and they skied the drifted shoulderof the rutted, unplowed…

  • A Homeland Walks Home Alone

    —after Ghassan Zaqtan Dawn breaks slowly hereand the rosefinch makes its ablutionsin the nascent light. Dust has passed usby as has a westerly wind, and now the quadcopterschatter their morning songs. Minaretsare strewn about the city awaiting a proper burial.The shepherd prophets are long gone, dear poet,but the conquerors linger and every daymore of our…