Poetry

That Pasta

Translated from the Spanish by Pablo Medina That pasta in cream sauce we made when we finished, that pasta we ate still trembling (we left the water on the stove, on a very low flame, and fifteen minutes before the end you flew, barefoot, and threw it in and barefoot flew back,                                                   remember?) That pasta…

Rue des Martyrs

At the Musée Gustave Moreau I looked at all the surfaces while you explained the stories.        At the base of the spiral stairs we bared our eyes at Les Chimères, a painting pale and unfinished.        What a heavy task he set himself to finish with color and form all the empty limbs, I…

rest in peace, beloveds

“See, one day, not now, we will be gone from this earth where we know the gladiolas.” —Aracelis Girmay But not today. today there is no funeral & no need for a burial shroud & a casket. in this room we are alive—each one of us tending the flowers that bloom on the small earth…

Crying Guy

Apparently I am this crying guy, eyes full of analogue world in the gap between olive leaves, acknowledging the sea, acknowledging all is fucked as kids and philosophers say and know best, but okay, for a silver-leafed span, storied but brief in the gap between olive branch and grief, I make this noise. It is…

Poem

How long would it take to grow an Eastern White Oak eighty feet tall in your own backyard? And how long might it take to burn one all the way down? Could you shoot that on your phone and let your battery run down until the ash at your feet is cool to touch? Even…

Tiny Broken Things

Look                                         even birds sing in mourning. For the first time in years, a dove in the front yard builds nest, quietly patterns her return with bundles, weaves tiny broken things in work of a home. Whereas even the desert still offers itself, a pursuit unfolding unlike our bodies, just constellations or chain link fences. The…

Ode to My Beautiful Veins 

It’s what the phlebotomists always say, gushing  when I slide up my sleeve, straighten my arm  to boast bulging channels evergreen  like spruce, leafy green like a spring mix,  they bubble with delight palpating  each protuberance, each tubular translucence  swimming just beneath my skin, I suppose  they are, perfectly plump for puncture,  these outcurved creeks,…

Proverbs

Does the rabbit know the fox has also turned to snow? You don’t raise pigs for milk. Wind pursues what it has blown away. Rain falls gently on the city and its sirens. We’re more water than dust. Every umbrella is a big top. And childhood is a name for a visionary state. If I…