Poetry

  • Two Watches

    He’s wearing two watches, one set to the local time in New York, the other in Gaza. In a café with friends, waiting for his tea at the round table, and whenever his eyes fall on the dial of the Gaza watch, he can see the kids of his Gaza neighborhood running in the alleys,…

  • History Class

    At my first history class, the only students attending are the future, the present, and the past. As I step in, the future gets ready to leave, while the past straddles the present, handcuffing it, severing its hamstrings, and dyeing its clothes gray.

  • The Nurse’s Name is Celeste

    When she comes to take youaway she asks if your ringcomes off. You twist and twist. Yousurrender. Celeste saysit will come off later. In those next hoursso many doors open,none of them returning you to me. A manin the atrium belowplays piano— an ambling, jazzy, winespritzer. Noiseto fill the void. I’ve already forgotten her face,…

  • The Forest

    A mast year for acorns, so like marbles and so manywe’re afraid of falling. I walk sideways down the hill, holding a long stick; Kate goes before mewearing her orange knit cap. Everything alive is changing. Everythingun-alive is changing. What did we think to stop? The broken trees lean on the unbroken trees,which will one…

  • Seventy

    So, I’ve grown less apparent apparently:the young men walk their dogs, and when our dogs meetwe look at the dogs without raising our eyes to each other. The fathers stand outside the elementary school laughingwith the mothers—Exactly, one of them says to the other—my passing presence faded like a well-washed once-blue cotton shirt. Finally, I…

  • Primavera

    He asks what I want him to do to me, the next movecapable of unraveling our bodies precariously stacked.I tell him the truth: I don’t know. I do not tell himhow I still can’t feel my body when in another man’s arms.I travel—backward, forward—the horizon is concealedby the still-brown trees crowning the interstate,first through a…

  • Inventions that recommend us

    Letter openers, proving we miss people urgently. Bottlecaps popping with satisfactory sound. All the miraculous ways to experience time— a roller coaster, a deep breath in sideways snow, flicker of windowsill basil glimpsed from an El stop at dusk. City streets patterned like plaid in a dishrag filling with sun. Portable stoves. Recycled stationary. The…

  • Boston Harbor

    The featured pop star’s voice was too big for the waterfront pavilion. That’s what the reviewer said. Her recent poignant hit flew overhead, drifted right out the open sides  of the white tent, somehow tugging us with it, flinging us toward starswhere we hung briefly before landing among jellyfish and buoys. Once we were part of the water,…