it’s the girl in deep water who will not drown (drum) come down (drum) come down (drum) zora’s instrument hidden in the belly (drum) carried across the atlantic (drum) it’s a mystery to master (drum) it don’t stop (drum) don’t stop (drum) gotta story to tell (drum) won’t stop (drum)…
She pays attention to the hair, not her fingers, and cuts herself once or twice a day. Doesn’t notice anymore, just if the blood starts flowing. Says, Excuse me, to the customer and walks away for a Band-Aid. Same spot on the middle finger over and over, raised like a callus. Also the nicks where…
Empty ice-cream carton in a kitchen garbage can. Up all night with your mother. He beat her again. Up all night eating ice cream, you made your mother laugh. ly Life is lone Duke’s hands on your shoulders, you play it again. Cancer eats moth holes through you and you and you. ly…
San Antonio, Florida They don’t mow on Sundays in San Antonio. They keep the seventh day for Paz and Neruda, for Simic angels whose wings are made of smoke. And they walk their dogs softly in the morning, so they will not miss the smallest utterance of Whitman or of John Clare, who pace the…
When the lights go out on a peaceful evening, it is wartime. Who pulled the switch? Sometimes all he heard was water on sand and even the shiplights flickered off, the bulbs swaying emptily on their poles. The bombers always rose from the horizon invisibly after dark. He dropped a glass of wine….
Teenagers for sure, one black, one white, so when did they have that terrified, high-pigtailed child? in yellow and pink, screaming Mommy, Mommy, at Sherman and Walden as I bike through. The boy stands in the street, you’d say irresolute, but his (good-looking) face is calm. As if I were the child I see the…
Long ago two sisters lived in a small brick house beside a superhighway. The tall chatty one knew the first & last name of every animal in the galaxy. The small quiet one could make her hair grow longer or shorter with no more than a thought. The pecan-colored sister said, “I wish I had…
Way out on the horizon— on the thinnest blue line sail thirteen sailboats with white sails. And all of them bear the name of one woman sailing out thirteen times out of lives and sight. With her faith in hurricanes and alcohol and the Coast Guard off-duty for the day, this time she may be…
Yesterday’s snow falling again and already. Falling steadily among the vowels, the tall consonants. Alertnesses scumbling among the cabbages. The eyebrowed jay named by a man named for a star. Stellar’s. When I say the word the pleasure happens on my palate and I am never the same person again. Smoke. Granular. Piñon. Clouds slumping…
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