1. High school fights were the worst, Young boys losing their teeth Against the chrome fenders of cars, Boys as they got thrown and then flew Then hit One kind of ground or another. There was always a second of nothing As the world came back to the boy, As the tooth loosed itself out,…
He speaks a farewell kiss to me. —Bob Dylan Pagan psalmody singing his checkered face into my sleep, tomahawk at our side, head in the bag. Ready to venture out against the colorless light, slandering a white gaze. That’s all it takes to find the world on its bow, turn a wheel against…
What happened of course was nothing extraordinary except for the bracelet she found in her mailbox—a breakfast of flat red stones, the painted smash of a river bottom. The river, she liked to imagine, in Africa, in Tanzania, in Dar es Salaam. The Rufiji, perhaps, for she is touching a map now and dreaming of…
I stand there under the high limbs of locust watching my father point a black gun into the air his arms steepled for the stillness required to split the proverbial hair with a BB. I would like to throw a red hat to catch what will smack from the barrel but instead the songbird drops…
More than peace and cypresses, emboldened hares at the field’s edge, Father, I love gallantry, tenacity, the sanguine heart before the ledge: the artist questing and failing— the feet of bested Icarus plunging into the sea’s crest— the artist triumphing: a page of fire from the book of heroes. More than light-hooved gazelles, views from…
With my black pointed hood and my raggedy black gown, its tatters like the Wicked Witch might sport before she hops on her broom to write the sky in black smoke, Surrender Dorothy!—I could be holding out my hands for a trick or treat, like any American child on a Halloween eve, if not for…
It was in that year the dog arrived On the farm, and I appeared in his eyes, A speck because I was made of flesh, Not fur, not tail, not paws thick as leather. I bent down, patted his coat, And I asked, Is it time now? The old stray was reddish brown, His breathing…
We will weave through the labyrinth of headstones to clear the patch of soil where you rest, to plant a tall palm with leaves that know that north sea breeze, to roast a suckling pig. The blood of this pig will mingle with your bones, tickle your limbs, awake the bomba y plena pulse. We…
And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son I have lived in tents and often, at midday, have I parted the tent-clothes and gone inside with the light of day so blinding my eyes that my wife spoke to me out of darkness, saying, Take this dish, and eat. I have walked among…
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