Poetry

The footsteps are unanimous, an urgent ovation which I took as the most wrong moment to show myself. If compassion struck the hull to pull us down, who could show compassion then to one such as myself? But eventually the storm moved on, silence proclaimed the shipmen gone and I lay on my back in…

after Gordon Matta-Clark a house is what gives way the living unframed behind the door (don’t answer) iron bedstead shadowed (here we’d hide to play) never comes around the head so crack the rafter (the hand, the face) tilt it true lay open the beam four corners forced (where you were) undone the bright core…

In the dark field, The question is the same. Desiring to sit and not sit In one place. And write nothing about smoke, Flaring birds with diaphanous wings, A crow’s intent, how slow the elderly Beneath spangled trees—how thoughtful their retreat. One bottomless pot. But I can’t keep Roethke out of my thoughts, Tu Fu…

Only symmetry harbors loss. —Lorna Dee Cervantes                 Throatlatch. Crupper. Martingale. Terret. My breath                         tightens around him,                                                 like a harness. Once a year         he eats a spoonful of dirt             from his father’s grave.                                                             In his sleep                                                 he mutters lines                                                             from his favorite flick,                                                 Capulina  …

Here I am, confronting this bowl kept under guard and pressurized glass in the archway of the St. Louis Art Museum, and somehow it feels good to note that it’s not all that impressive. Clean, sure, and smooth, but plain. Like this was just the demonstration piece by the teacher of a pottery class who…

I don’t believe in ghosts though I’ve seen milk-steam wandering a darkened room. I don’t believe a big mind regards all sparrows though I admire the faithful, how crossing a street or a continent of trouble they seem confident and frank as stars. Cranky and cratered, I maneuver like a moon of bright remarks. In…

I hear a generator buzz, I taste those days, citronella swirled with cardboard meals and ice unlimited, and the welcome thrill of Katrina’s king cake dolls, half-ounce bottles of Tabasco packed with MREs marked “Chicken Fajitas.” People thought our food was special made, a little heat singing to the tongue of home, but I knew…

We’ll never know for sure now, you in your garage with the motor on and the tailpipe clogged and the door closed, three days before the trial. Your wife found you after she found the note, and this morning the numinous beauty of low fog in our field has taken on a strange gloom, a…

You’ve got to have a little faith in people, the girl says, blinking tears. She’s seventeen, the wise, shy center of a film where couple after couple split, East Side lovers blown round an unending storm, while past them whirl parks, cafés, planetariums. The screen (she’s sobbing) swears by Woody Allen’s smile like lead anchoring…