Poetry

  • Proverbs

    Does the rabbit know the fox has also turned to snow?You don’t raise pigs for milk.Wind pursues what it has blown away. Rain fallsgently on the city and its sirens. We’re more water than dust.Every umbrella is a big top.And childhood is a name for a visionary state.If I didn’t try to teach, I’d have…

  • The Death of Eve

    On the first day God began splittingthings, and time began.The angels gathered in little groups—even though it was forbidden—and said things like: remember when deathand life were the same?Remember the language of trees?Remember love before hate became its own thing? God said remembering was just for Sundaysbut people were already beginning to ignore him.Remember God?…

  • Mean/Meant Aubade

    If we were to try to keep this even, or at least find the midpoint in this argument                                        before anyone gets meanwe’d be golden.Let’s say when you said                    maybe we’re not meant to be with just one person                    I had responded with –  what do you mean by being with someone –  what do you mean by meant                    but instead, I swallowed                    the plumb…

  • Extinction

    Much of the earth has been eradicated before. I’m not going to stay awake and think about that. Sleep is important. Sleep is essential. Tomorrow  I’ll be groggy and off-balance and there’s the possibility of falling and breaking a bone. I must not stay awake and think of the chained, the bombed-out, the starving.  After all, love exists, people…

  • Linea Nigra

    When I look down at my belly, the line therelooks back. Straight as a snake measuring its prey.Twice I’ve watched my midline muster stripeand thicken. Become open parenthesis, primed to holdthe past tense on display. What kind of magic bloomsa scar before the skin ruptures? I continue to findthe single wings of nine-spotted moths, monarchs.Stained…

  • Pen

    I try not to usea pen that’s too special,writing insteadwith whatever’s at hand,      in this case a penfrom George and Ken’sCollision, whereI had my hood repaired.      After paying the deductible,I wasn’t leaving therewithout a pen,so I slipped this one into my pocketas George—or was it Ken?—printed the receipt.It writes quite nicely,          gliding across the pageof…