Poetry

A tiny scarab landed in my hand. I see how this works. God just shrinkssmaller and smaller with every chance you let pass, every opportunityto take the message that the horse delivers, “until God arrives assomething, in the end, like you,” I said to the scarab, and with that, asif having had enough, once and…

In truth, who has the energy to be evil?One starts, perhaps, with bar fights, But the dentist bills alone have got to be crazy.Your money’s spent before you’ve begun. And who can actually afford a lair anyway?Wouldn’t we rather have that nice, Three-bedroom, two-bath, with enclosed garage,New roof, and exceptional curb appeal? And what realtor…

Moons falling, invisible hours, my son                                                                               never leaves                                                                     our nest—when the house                                                                              is quiet, it’s most   dangerous. The air deflates to flat, a flag                                               cloaking the rooms. It scares me— this silence—his teenage shadow                                                                  beneath my door, he pauses, moves            on. His footsteps patter                                               and fade, distant like gunfire                                                                                      on the horizon. His noises muffled behind walls—a…

First, you carry no rider. It is to sting and eat sweat, this life, but more itis to live near windows mostly in quiet, or to wait for the fast opening,and when it comes, I want to climb down from myself. I want to leavego the bridle. So I have started watching, standing at the…

Caught on my own between homes, I had no choicebut to live for awhile in the Lost and Found department of Trans-World Airline at LaGuardia Airportwhere I worked my first job and could not live. With a key to the dark back of the storage hangar,I made a space of lost suitcases stacked into a…

Twitter: If you had a mermaid phase as a kidyou’re probably bisexual now How did I not understandwhen I swam with my anklescrossed to make a finor when I askedmy friend to touch my arm,my skin? She wrote love you xoon my ribcage in black pen.All summer we hidin my family’s camperbehind the daisy curtainsand it…

From the roof of the horse barn, shinglesof ice begin their irreversible skid.Hoofprints frozen last December appearfreshly stamped in muddy earth. It’s been winter so long, he fears the thaw.What will become of the shadow-selfthat glided beside him, after the Chevywas parked at the Marathon station, and they skied the drifted shoulderof the rutted, unplowed…

—after Ghassan Zaqtan Dawn breaks slowly hereand the rosefinch makes its ablutionsin the nascent light. Dust has passed usby as has a westerly wind, and now the quadcopterschatter their morning songs. Minaretsare strewn about the city awaiting a proper burial.The shepherd prophets are long gone, dear poet,but the conquerors linger and every daymore of our…

Abandoned railway station, Texas desertDecember 4, 1900* Here they touch people all nightwith the mouths of rifle barrels. Thatis how the guards tap out their countof one hundred and twelve Boricuasgoing rigid inside this chilling box. I close my eyes, I countthree white shirts rowing night’s current.Youngbloods who ducked the guards’ bullets, they mustcount on…