Poetry

“It’s not a good disease to have,” my doctor says. I admire his grim honesty, I admire it greatly. “Indolent, but it usually does progress.” Which sounds about right for me. Two years of misdiagnosed torment and now this. I ask him about suicide. He nods. “It happens,” he says. When I tell him I’ve…

Lunch recess, a football tossed in the air, John paced the length of the fence as a small group of girls gathered to gossip about Duane and who he liked while John, wanting so much to connect, ran at them screaming “John germs,” touching Cindy’s back. When the football soared too high, John jumped up on a stone…

For Laurie Lago It’s an opulence oftenbest manifested in the obituaries.Edward, for instance, for whomthe most that could be saidwas a headline that he had been“A Lifetime Member ofCostco.” Or that real daredevilLeo, whose very last wordswere “Watch this!”

I had only recently been setfree—not from prison, butfrom something akin to it, a facility just as meanwith a warden of a differentsort. It could have been said of me that I was now outwalking the streets. That’swhat could have been said. In truth I was at home,glued to my computer,at it again, conversing this…

In which the receding sea makes Black Beach a mirror and I’m given another sky, where the green glass like a lozenge floats—rubbed rough and soft— and I feel after a long month of worry                     the sea reminding the shard: you’re sand. I roll the glass clean between my hands, dip it into a tidal…

Now my father cannot remember the name of the war he fought in seventy-some years ago. When I remind him, he becomes belligerent about a war that never really ended, and one that could start again. Not Korea, I know that much, son! It’s the war that starts with an M. To try and correct…

A baby green anolein the bathtub gripsporcelain whileI shower. Petrifiedsurvivalists, both, wedrip. Used to stillnessin downpours, itmoves only whenI pluck its bodyinto my handsand bend a gentlecage. I’m savingyou from me, I say.Soaked. A prehistoricface pokesbetween thumbs,a spell on the lips—clinging to an ideaof escapethis tiny crisisbounds alongmy lifelinebetween palms likeI’m holding myown green heart…

Written in response to works in Description de l’Egypte From point A to point B            the longest distance is travelled by a financier             driven by his craving     for adventure             In the archive of the escapade the frontispiece shows Alexandria       framed by charioteers city-states to the east and west                a parade around the ruins      (The ouroboros represents infinity but…

The scent of mimosas and cured algae at the nape of my neck attracts no one but me. The evening’s ammonic light, busy with free electrons, rinses the curtains to ash. I finger damp calico at my calf and wonder if anyone will be gentle to me. Softened by sweat, the calico fissures secret folds…