to my great-grandmother and her only daughter, Jewell In times of survival, there are no decisions great or small—as a girl, my grandmother killed a copperhead with a broomstick, beating its pitted skull until her father’s dirt-damp floor shined bright as a penny. There was no money. The traps went empty. Listen: my…
The fly knows when I give up waiting for him to land and go back to my book. Then when I am in the middle of a stanza or line he returns, and just before I am again aware of his air-brake touch, he has bitten me; I am jerked from the poem and the…
Made by what I read Slippage To think a fall broken as not a stumble but a certain voice among the trees Listen Listen I am the ghost of undivided attention I am what Saul saw on the road near Damascus I am the ancient sigh pushed out on the…
Because the bullet was a dream before it was a bird. Because the bullet was a dream before it alighted in the child’s body while he looked at a pigeon wobbling through the air. Because the child has moved into photographs on mantels and the dreamer’s hands are folded in his lap and have not…
After Posidippus When my ship was wrecked on the rocks, and I died, Leophantos, a traveler, found me. Long on the road, he mourned by my side and wrapped a shawl around me. Alone by the sea he buried me and offered up his prayer. But I, too small to tell him of my…
It happened to me once. Winter came and snow quilted every inch. I stood on the soap box as I was told, and made staggering accusations. The public ignored so I retreated behind the potted yew. I was waiting for a moment I was supposed to have on a balcony overlooking the giant gridded landscape….
i. Old gold stars & a basket full of spinning eggs. I have been lit by handless fire: I surrender. ii. A sliver cricket chirps Luna! Luna! quickening yellow eyelids of awe. iii. Whose milky nipple nurses a galaxy? Whose changeable face peers over a cradle? iv. Crone who never dies…
The footsteps are unanimous, an urgent ovation which I took as the most wrong moment to show myself. If compassion struck the hull to pull us down, who could show compassion then to one such as myself? But eventually the storm moved on, silence proclaimed the shipmen gone and I lay on my back in…
after Gordon Matta-Clark a house is what gives way the living unframed behind the door (don’t answer) iron bedstead shadowed (here we’d hide to play) never comes around the head so crack the rafter (the hand, the face) tilt it true lay open the beam four corners forced (where you were) undone the bright core…
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