Poetry

Apex, Pandemic IV

The cardinal at my window     sings                     year-round,                 does not migrate                                       or shed her colors, builds an open cup from parched grass and the hair she plucks     from the dog’s bristled ear,                                                     cannot bear the sight of her own face reflected in the pane—…

I thought I’d miss you

desperately, but your shadow is   so interesting— profile in silhouette   elegant, nose almost Grecian, receding   hairline, high brow suggests perhaps   a keen intelligence, capable of reflection,   new perspectives. Every movement   graceful, not one wasted step or   gesture, perfect lyric in black   and white, crisp, edgy—not your  …

Real Town & Country

Once, a woman’s musk on the train conjured the pinch of my seaside youth —briny, consistent in its waterlogged blessing. I waited out my contract of subtropical longing, now here, manifested in these splayed, commuters’ bodies peppered with wage and heat, lapping each other daily.   I bend down and boost you up, future self,…

When Lois Does a Puzzle I Know I’m in Trouble

          Like when she takes out a 1000-piece Abstract—a Kandinsky or mandala of Buddha’s numberless lives— she’s telling me she hasn’t lost hope yet but it’s iffy for us.             When Lois slides from the shelf one from The World’s Great Destinations series, for example, “Balloons on a Spring Night over Paris,”—actually, any place we’ve been…

San Sebastián

It may have been one of the times we died, only to come right back. Maybe we rolled the car and were reborn in the woods without a clue. At least I hope death is like this: a town with just two restaurants. What a steady fire I make against the night. What a good…

My Mother and I Loiter

on the front steps of some young professional’s apartment in Boston.                     She smokes I hold my breath it is hard for both of us to breathe. Her: heavy doses of meds Me: small doses of meds meant to make seeing her less painful, other things less crushing.                     Today it is hot she tries to blow…

Looking Out

The window is a world, the trees continents, complicated, crowding the blue and hazy shore and that house, that house over there, my mistakes come to rest in the landscape. How did they find me, invisible, behind glass? How did they become so solid, so fixed and neighborly, more vigilant each day, looking out for…

Epoché

I buried my girlhood in the garden where nothing grows, at the bottom of the river that runs through it. I buried   the hair ribbons and skirts with shorts sewn underneath, buried the blow-up pool and flamingo floaties, the plush lamb   tied to a string. My girlhood, sunburned with skinned knees, leaving wet…