well—i suppose we could spend more time pretendingi bought a new suit for carnegie hall—bought a new suitfor the occasion, bought a new suit with dues from parisyes it’s true, he pays a price for an america which stillleaves a balance. well—i have a future held in the lungsof this great thundering silence. this sleeping…
We were downing cheap red wine at a barcalled Library Books free for the takingThe carafe like a blood-filled IV bagI opened a book on palmistry LifelinesWhen my words began to slur you took me to Mickie-Dee’s A ghoul was thereand the grim reaper Masks on every tableI saw bones in the…
It is not my birthday but todayI walk by the cold shrubsof my town’s finest lanepopping birthday cake jelly beansinto my mouth one by one.How spectacular, the waywe’ve reduced an eventinto a little waxen egg!It is speckled like a robin’s egg;pink, blue, yellow, orange.It even has the tasteof the bend where the caketurned crusty caramel…
Translated from the Spanish by Pablo Medina A man and a woman walk down the streetlaughing. They make plans.They had a grand time in the hotel where they made loveand they laugh, make another date for tomorrow. Life is wonderful.Tomorrow he’ll be laid out in a funeral home one hourbefore their tryst (the scaffoldingbroke loose…
One father culled talons from an eagle’s claw and strung them around our necks. Another father watched a dogwood tree burn slowly through the night. The yellowjacket froze in the space between our faces, two numb fingers brushing the edge of a sharp tack. You spoke softly—each word blinking hard then opening wide its soft eyes, baring for the…
I’ve got an arrow here.Loving the hand that sent itI the dart revere.—Emily Dickinson If it is attention that condemns me,then attention may absolve me: you pierced me cleanly,the hollow daylight proving I never flinched, a movementwhich implies anticipation. I held still. I held onto another love. I turned my back to openings—to doorwaysyou may…
My mother has never died yet.My father has died oh so many years ago.I have never died yet though I have not died from trying.What is the most profound tragedy that can befall a family?And the dream answered: The death of the primary wage-earner.My sister has never died yet though she believes she has been…
a delicate box. The child inside it. It’s okay to not think abouthow the child came to be in the box. It’s okay to focus solelyon what the child offers: the sound of fireweed bending in wind,yesterday’s pages torn from their binding, a small hand. Yesterdaythere was no sign of the child. No warning between…
“What’s for you won’t go by you,” he told me, the great, recalcitrant songwriter so heavy-browed with doubt and kindness. I was eighteen and had taken a Greyhound from New York to Nashville to find him, my corduroys indistinguishable from my self. That whole wolf-on-skates year his music had saved me, made me feel something…
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