Poetry

She did not play horsey on the hardwoodfloor. She did not neigh, nor did she whinny.She had some things she wanted to write down:something about her father and his gunsand his alcohol and her trite love for himthat never got to pale in comparisonto the blooming chest-fire she would have feltif she ever held her…

Don’t let me end up a mural on Bryant St.Sound of a cheap lighter heating a joint. Hiss like deep inhale from a fresh joint,large worries can be made small with a mouth. Large worries made small in Sunday’s mouth:aunties’ lips while they sing, victory is mine I dream and sing, victory, today, is mine,eye…

The Germans have a word for you—schnappsidee—an idea                    fueled by margaritas or shots of tequila or bottles of vinobianco or rosso, you know the ideas that maybe involve a road trip                    to Miami or California and you wake up in a parking lotin Mississippi or Delray Beach with a dead french fry stuck                    to the side of your…

As a child, I hid to read your waves,nothing can lie in water.I wanted to peek throughyour wreckages, wrap your windaround my breath,I wanted to keep your sand,shells, and all your shores.The water’s reflection slowlypeeled fear from my skin,women sang to the shipsas if the world was breaking outto carry the cloudsto the other side…

We think we canfind the beginning,the origin, the genesis. We look everywhere,the nativity is nowhere,Jesus is absent. The land is lost,it doesn’t speak these languages.The sea keeps its own history. We keep our own imagesof our bible,our Terra Santa. When you cameyou found what’s modern,what’s wretched, not your holy, and back thenthe olive trees weren’treplaced…

So, I’ve grown less apparent apparently:the young men walk their dogs, and when our dogs meetwe look at the dogs without raising our eyes to each other. The fathers stand outside the elementary school laughingwith the mothers—Exactly, one of them says to the other—my passing presence faded like a well-washed once-blue cotton shirt. Finally, I…

When she comes to take youaway she asks if your ringcomes off. You twist and twist. Yousurrender. Celeste saysit will come off later. In those next hoursso many doors open,none of them returning you to me. A manin the atrium belowplays piano— an ambling, jazzy, winespritzer. Noiseto fill the void. I’ve already forgotten her face,…

A mast year for acorns, so like marbles and so manywe’re afraid of falling. I walk sideways down the hill, holding a long stick; Kate goes before mewearing her orange knit cap. Everything alive is changing. Everythingun-alive is changing. What did we think to stop? The broken trees lean on the unbroken trees,which will one…

After seven nights of silence, he woke to seven drawingsof a ram, pinned along his walls. Spit six seeds in a tin cup and trailed his hands along the white hallsinging about something to do with morning. My father sat his easel in the musicaland was a farmer, but wanted to be a painter. When…