Poetry

The moon sent us up this stream— the moon could not be wrong— Pulled upward by that promise, the Snake River Fall Chinook came home already treasoned to fail. There they thrashed, tens of thousands head-to-tail in two days and two nights against the new dam on the river. Relentless even to the final washing…

No nation of alienates, we. We do our dopamine dance in the kitchen, in phone booth and office, aided by pharmacology, hindsight, and when all fails, Zen. We no longer stop twice at stop signs, frantically patting our hips for our wallets. We frog-march from gray to shrill purple, breathing in shellfish, bee balm, fresh…

Memory of him begins in my mouth; finger whet red with Chianti, slicked around the rim of a glass half-full slips a harmonic: sere, sweet vibration a cricket would make if it could sustain its dumb broken one-note. Porch: evening low-slung from telephone wires. Wine on my finger, put to lips: a way of thinking…

Since starting triple drug therapy last week, R.’s barely been out of bed. Every eight hours his watch goes off and it’s time to take the pills. You have to take them with meals, but he’s lost his appetite. He swallows the pills, sits up for a few minutes, then back to bed. Tonight he…

I lost a tooth in a bloody fight. Was it with Murphy or his half-brother Cutler? Afterwards we searched for it among gum wrappers rolled in tight little balls— had someone waited nervously for a lover? I found two matching buttons and Murphy a Victory dime he claimed was beyond price. I hoped he’d make…

Back when I used to be Indian I am leaning into the shadows, my shoulder against the rough mud and log wall. The old woman’s fingers mumble down the length of her black rosary, her head haloed against the chimney of a kerosene lamp. In his box, resting across two weathered sawhorses, Uncle Big Tooth…

I’m standing amidst the ruins of the Plaza de la Sirena with my parrot, Dr. José Venegas, who I suspect of being tapped into some collective archetypal memory bank with a bizillion other parrots— the way thimble jellyfish are with other thimble jellyfish. He knows colors and can count to ten, nine, eight . ….

I would teach you how to play this instrument which is a little like a violin and something like a flute but diaphanous as watercolor without the pigment but you don’t pay attention . . . When I tell you to count you stare out the window: what could be there if not an immense…

for Mick Vranich   Back when I used to be Indian I am sitting in a booth in a late night café, Chicago draped around me like anxious, wasted breath. Across the shiny tabletop Raven leans toward his coffee, wrapping the white cup with long fingers hardened from bending over sawhorses and hammering guitars. Music…