Poetry

The last tug at the sleeve lets her blouse fall off shoulders to breasts that have never seen a lover, she shudders, shakes so hard I touch the bones inside the song of this afternoon to stop the loud way our fear of us rattles her in the flutter of bugs so fragile they can…

Desire for the good deal, the hot need to look slick, wordless advertisement for the invisible product, I release you like the dumpster behind the cafeteria releases these long, festering rivers of milk. Fear of death, fear of narrow spaces, love of the wine-red mole that punctuates the transaction-inspiring cleavage of Jill, my credit union…

The cookies his neighbors brought by              didn’t taste like pity— at my father’s house              for the first time, after, the locks broken into, now new, when cross              the street comes a neighbor, cookies shrouded              in tinfoil, a plate I need not return.              How long had the pair kept vigil out the window              for someone to…

Because there’s no end to cruelty,                   Lyle ties half a brick                                    to a hen’s foot, climbs the ladder up the water tower                    where waits Tony—together,                                    they toss their weighted hens into space: the flung chicken                    that charts its course                                    across clear air, fans its…

Like grass in rain, my dead grow at an amazing rate. Meet me, won’t you, I’ve managed to lose the key. Death, you’ve outdone yourself. The lawn a little lake.

When Shirley Weems submarines her Barbie in the shallows, spooking the catfish while her brother and me sit on upturned buckets with cane poles on our side of the pond not bothering anybody, I note how the light around Shirley seems so rosy, all a-twinkle with its own self-contained Shirley music. I pick a dirt…

To Yusef Komunyakaa   When I rise from the bank the water’s slow as shadow in my steps, thick as blood. The whole river’s secretive, still, dark as roux cooled in the skillet, as rank, as sweet, ancient as catfish, ancienter. The moon’s sifted light clouds rumor to lilies or daffodils, an egret on the…

Thoughts have gone wolf again, hunting for reasons in the dark. Suppose we were never               supposed to fall into each other’s arms? Made a bone-boat tossed all our memories in—               watched it sail. There’s a chance I know nothing and I…

Pretend a boom box blasts over your shoulder. Raise your hands in the air. Twist them as if picking mangoes. Look to the right as if crossing streets. Look to the left, slowly as if balancing orange baskets. Bend as if picking cotton. Do the rump. Straighten up as if dropping firewood. Rake, do the…