Poetry

What birdwas thatthat justflew throughmy mind?

Open carry, open for business,open and shut case. Openlike a store. Open like a vault.Any opening in my defenses is yourfault so I close it all up as tight asI can. Then I fold closed bothmy hands again. This gesturemakes a fist. It makes me listlessand makes me brisk and makesme wish for the bicycle…

Transcendence The first thing is silence: the muffling power of snow, that Fairbankssnow hanging on every limb and twig. No noise from nearby roads, nosounds of planes taking off at the airport. Just my skis gliding along,my poles crunching the snow. My breath, and if I stopped to listen, thesound of my heart beating.      is…

When someone says It’s the middle of nowhere,they don’t mean New York or Boston or LA,they mean where you and I are from—Tennessee and West Virginia,Kentucky and Mississippi and Alabama.Those rural places where our lives are unfolding.Where my grandmother Maria Garcia Peña is laughing her big golden ringsof laughter in the kitchen above a frying…

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?…

I never met a February I liked, shorter or short, though the birds are no longer wary, and chivesrush out green in an herb garden cemetery. Onething the sickle branch says is that mulberriesare months away, despite how hungry sidewalkshave gotten for smushed sweets after another seasonof salt and the crushed blue light of sun…

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…

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…