Poetry

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…

One father culled talons from an eagle’s claw                      and strung them around our necks.  Another father watched a dogwood tree burn slowly                      through the night. The yellowjacket froze  in the space between our faces, two numb fingers                      brushing the edge of a sharp tack.  You spoke softly—each word blinking hard                      then opening wide its soft…

I’ve got an arrow here. Loving the hand that sent it I the dart revere. —Emily Dickinson If it is attention that condemns me, then attention may absolve me: you pierced me cleanly, the hollow daylight proving I never flinched, a movement which implies anticipation. I held still. I held on to another love. I…

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. —My memory of my father’s voice message Up the sky-escalator                                              to meet his maker. An angel measures                               the draperies of my dad’s inscape                                              with tailor’s tape, palpates the spot                               near his unfaith. Rate your life’s pain.                                              Weighty, dad answers. A…

        What are we doing  in the world?         In the world, where the children         are playing  world.         Where they drive their little toy cars         and trucks up and down          the steep  imaginary          roads of the mind—         maneuvering  around         the oncoming  traffic that barrels          down around  endless hairpin          turns— What are we doing          in the world?  Where…

Since I forget the names of my lovers, my favorite dog, the flowers and constellations I walk on earth like a spy from silence. In Walmart I forget my change. In sex I forget to cry out. In a dream I don’t know when to wake. I read endlessly, underlining every third word, but it…

Keep swallowing. You’re being poisoned, but you have the upper hand, so choke it down your torched throat. You know what it means to be on the banks of the Scioto River with Josh and Nick and a plastic bottle, the kind cyclists tuck onto their bike frames, filled with every kind of liquor your…

Day one of Marketing 101 is Don’t sell a product. Sell an experience. Benjamin Moore’s most popular nursery shades are forest floor and polar bear and furthermore,                     for lingering before heron and muslin and lichen, which fall like snow in the paint display, I must owe and owe. I know my time is money. My…

In what was probably an interview with Krista Tippett, or maybe it was Rachel Zucker’s conversation with Carl Phillips, the question arose if we are the same person we once were (always are) or if something changes to a point of no return. I made it my mission to return to Prospect Park after four…