Poetry

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…

When I look down at my belly, the line therelooks back. Straight as a snake measuring its prey.Twice I’ve watched my midline muster stripeand thicken. Become open parenthesis, primed to holdthe past tense on display. What kind of magic bloomsa scar before the skin ruptures? I continue to findthe single wings of nine-spotted moths, monarchs.Stained…

I try not to usea pen that’s too special,writing insteadwith whatever’s at hand,      in this case a penfrom George and Ken’sCollision, whereI had my hood repaired.      After paying the deductible,I wasn’t leaving therewithout a pen,so I slipped this one into my pocketas George—or was it Ken?—printed the receipt.It writes quite nicely,          gliding across the pageof…

How did the people realizethe steeple needed repair? They prayed below for what stood above.They hired a steeplejack to go and see. Before descending he took a lookat the towers of Boston to the north and skyward at contrails of flights.He paused to consider the damage. They prayed against the worst they could imagine.They imagined…

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…

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…

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…