Poetry

Around here

Down at the beach. The lake trying to wash the moon off its back. The moon trying to ride the horse of the lake. Me lighting a candle and sticking it in sand. Another. Making a circle for the wind to burn its fingers on. For the moon to read a flickering elegy to itself….

That Halloween 

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…

Birthday Poem

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…

A Man and a Woman

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…

Zugzwang

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…

Dart

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…

I Watched a Box Kite Swoon

My mother has never died yet. My father has died oh so many years ago. I have never died yet though I have not died from trying. What is the most profound tragedy that can befall a family? And the dream answered: The death of the primary wage-earner. My sister has never died yet though…