Poetry

Maelstrom

Wind shook the trees and rain crackled at the windows. Could it have been any other way? Rain coming down, clothes wet, water dripping from our hair? At the window, could it have been a ghost singing its final warning? Clothes wet, water dripping from our hair, he fell on me like rain. I could…

Misunderstanding

translated by G. Wiersma let’s ignore what happened in the past in a place that could be anywhere a lamp flickers between sparks of light in darkness I am precisely etched happiness or suffering just at this moment are indistinguishable

Six Words

yes no maybe sometimes always never Never? Yes. Always? No. Sometimes? Maybe— maybe never sometimes. Yes— no always: always maybe. No— never yes. Sometimes, sometimes (always) yes. Maybe never . . . No, no— sometimes. Never. Always? Maybe. Yes— yes no maybe sometimes always never.

Everything

Friends should learn to think differently about leaving— everything goes away: the sun, clouds, even stars become nothing after a while                            *   *   * Remember when we found that old mill by the stream? The fallen walls, leaves dropping, ancient mounds of archeology Remember being 13? The angle of the light? And how we…

One Size Fits All Blues

The map’s measurements mimic . nothing in the world The field’s new furrows . follow the wandering gulch Sometimes sentences and lines . need to be the same Daughters suffocate . beneath their fallen fathers Anything you can explain . I don’t need to hear . Unpredictably angled . strings crisscross a grid The three…