Poetry

well—i suppose we could spend more time pretending i bought a new suit for carnegie hall—bought a new suit for the occasion, bought a new suit with dues from paris yes it’s true, he pays a price for an america which still leaves a balance. well—i have a future held in the lungs of this…

We were downing cheap red wine at a bar called Library   Books free for the taking The carafe like a blood-filled IV bag I opened a book on palmistry   Lifelines When my words began to slur you took me  to Mickie-Dee’s   A ghoul was there and the grim reaper   Masks on…

It is not my birthday but today I walk by the cold shrubs of my town’s finest lane popping birthday cake jelly beans into my mouth one by one. How spectacular, the way we’ve reduced an event into a little waxen egg! It is speckled like a robin’s egg; pink, blue, yellow, orange. It even…

Translated from the Spanish by Pablo Medina            A man and a woman walk down the street laughing. They make plans. They had a grand time in the hotel where they made love and they laugh, make another date for tomorrow. Life is wonderful. Tomorrow he’ll be laid out in a funeral home one hour…

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…