Once the phone, called the “telephone,” was a voice one heard by pressing what looked like a stethoscope to one’s ear, answering by shouting at a device on the wall. This was before talking on the phone was invented—a more intimate exchange using a receiver that allowed one to speak to the voice while holding…
Not sibylline but clear, empty weather; of the eight kinds of sky it was the milk-paled potion most like a cup of coffee she poured past full in such a way as to show herself how good she was, how the liquid lolled just over the white cup’s rim, just so the instant before an…
You meet at most four archbishops in a lifetime. You have at most one lifetime. You sing when in pain and expect to be heard. You see the outline of holy figures, their windows and blinds. You want to kiss the gold of the coat and you want it to come off on your lips….
from The Jade Buddha: A Sequence In the midst of a life, out by the propane tank, by the stacked timbers, while magpies kept up their quizzical cat-like calls in the piñons— a little threatening, their small part in the large thinking of the planet, their part to be clever and quick, seasonal marauders at…
Where would I be if not for your wild heart? I ask this not from love, but selfishly— How could I live? How could I make my art? Questions I wouldn’t ask if I was smart. Take the whole thing on faith. Blind eyes can see where I would be if not for your wild…
I loved one person do you see the evergreen there in fog one by one I was taught to withdraw first from him do you want to know how the mind works under extreme cold ice forming on the eyelid or wind thrown at me I felt every needle felt every breath…
That summer I saw you as a bird, a whitethroat singing O Sweet Canada Canada but a strange sooty color, then as the dwarf peach that had never borne ruddy with hanging fruit, actually bedecked like a Christmas tree. Everything promised transformation, day into night, stars unrolling like an opera score for owls, crickets, and…
for Taha Muhammad Ali and for Aaron Shabtai From nothing but his fear, and kiss her cunning brows Who braves the risen salar, daughter’s bursting ripeness Moaning through the sash, he marries to a settler The crown sits on his head, to hold her as he wants For him the dead king’s wife, in a…
Night sweats to the rattle and clink of their armor— marching grooves around my bed, pulling toothpicks from tatami to disembowel each other, or skewer and roast a beetle, fine bone china of their sake cups rolling the sound of marbles when they drop them on the hard- wood floors at dawn. You think I’m…
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