Poetry

  • A Hundred Fields

    a crane wakes me to say, fear is a thief.fear, the fog still on the shoulders of our fields, the rapeseed, the peat. in a barley field, a boyescapes Holodomor. grandmother sees him there.falls in love with him. did they embrace in that fielduntil wrinkled like walnuts? rather, they lived a life of common cruelty.she bore two…

  • Storyknife Rain

    for Erin Coughlin Hollowell Glory of rain, glory of sea icesilver as a fish crow’s wings carving sunrise, gloryglory glory of moose big as a city busgrazing on rain-soaked grass, gloryof fireweed that has lost its fine fall silk to wind,glory of beluga and humpback whale invisiblefrom these downpour-beaten cliffs,glory of black spruce, mountain ash,…

  • That Pasta

    Translated from the Spanish by Pablo Medina That pasta in cream sauce we made when we finished,that pasta we ate still trembling(we left the water on the stove,on a very low flame,and fifteen minutes before the endyou flew, barefoot, and threw it inand barefoot flew back,                                                  remember?) That pasta back when dusk fellwith its smell of…

  • Ode to Retinol

    You’re kept in capsules on the bathroom counter, a synthetic strain of vitamin A, sealedfor potency. Your purpose is to shieldthe face from signs of aging. Over-the-counter lacks the power existing in medical grade— though too much, over time, can blur the vision, incite a kind of skin-peeling conditionor frail the bones. Your purest form betrayed      the man who…

  • Melancholia

    Before your birth,                   I marked you as my own,the way I marked                    your mother before hers.Inscribed on every                    cell of every bone,the standard of my family                    never blurs.I coil between the                    makings of your bedand in the small hours                    whisper you awake.I poison every                    sentence in your headand all those comforts                    other people take.Eat salmon, buy a doodle,                    down the pillsthe doctor tenders…

  • Around here

    Down at the beach.The lake trying to wash the moon off its back.The moon trying to ride the horse of the lake.Me lighting a candle and sticking it in sand.Another. Making a circle for the windto burn its fingers on. For the moonto read a flickering elegy to itself.The infinite same syllable of the surf.Is…

  • That Halloween 

    We were downing cheap red wine at a barcalled Library   Books free for the takingThe carafe like a blood-filled IV bagI opened a book on palmistry   LifelinesWhen my words began to slur you took me to Mickie-Dee’s   A ghoul was thereand the grim reaper   Masks on every tableI saw bones in the…