Poetry

Sometimes, I’m tired of being a mother, weary of holding her in my mind, her words brighter than mine, the light’s movement on the rock. Look, I say, Listen, to what my daughter said. (tired of being) reasonable and calm, answering to Mom and how sweet (the sound) my name in her mouth, her mouth…

When they run out of meat                men disappear. I chew         my hair, a kind of fullness that is kind, a thread                soup. A nest gathers         its strands inside me. The dead hatch, translucent-eyed,                wire-boned, small         whistling through beaks. We share our (secret)                feast, miles of hair to keep         us warm. I rock on my heels…

Because my son is as old as the stars Because I have no blessings Because I hold tangerines like orange tennis balls Because I sit alone and welcome morning across              the unshaved jaws of my lawn Because the houses on my street sleep like turtles Because the proper weight of beauty was her eyes              last…

You expected to see blood dripping through his clothes                                        —writing prompt from a student so you kept your distance so you closed your eyes so you ran as fast as you could through that garbage strewn alley, down that street lined with dilapidated cars. You did not pause to consider the wound—who or what caused…

           I can turn the space of him over in my hands. See if it comes apart, if it’s permeable. Does it keep time, shrink, dissolve on flesh. Does it bounce. Can I back that thing up. Can I see if it stands, if it cuts correctly. If it can clothe me.    If I can I…

a white-trunked white- limbed white-leafed tree white petals sepals white stamens pistils bees inside a white woman pure white body skin hair white eyes white lips nipples blood white grass for the white stones of this white dream

Glory to the half rest, to the breath between         the third and fourth beats,               the dwindling arrow of the decrescendo, to the sunrise over Malibu, and its sleeping starlets,        the empty horizon,               the city’s great thought…

carried a baby heart in my pocket neat pink packet that kept beating a quiet music or calling machine with no reception except in my hand that reached from time to time in my pocket and cradled that only connection to what might have been or was it to what might be

They could say what they liked, imitate the way I stuttered the morning Pledge, mashed the alphabet, ask how many chickens 1 plus 3 made, why my brain sat in a corner, in a class of one, refused to read or write, was nailed to my tongue, just as long as they understood that some…