When sadness settlesin, more intractable than usual—when it takes more pains to make itselfknown— I tell my sisters not to worry.I will garden the sadness away. I decideon a raised bed, staining the cedar planksI stack into walls that form a newlack. I order loam and compostthe man with the pickup calls gorgeous. Do we…
Long before Francis,St. Isaac of Syria welcomed creaturesgreat and small. My kind of saint,he said that Hell might not last—Godcould end it. What if Isaachad stepped in, held his hand upto my father, said No! Stop! Would Istill be this tree split by lightning,sending out shoots of greenagainst all odds?
1. Shea Stadium In my twenties I used to go to the occasional afternoon game at Shea Stadium. Sometimes the Mets won. Once I ordered a hot dog. The guy next to me, handing my money to the vendor and the hot dog to me in a classic example of the chiasmus, said, “You know,…
Whose rooftops droop like power lines and tiltingstovepipes cough fibrils of smoke from failing firesthat haven’t given heat since Mondale lost. I knowthe faded NASCAR signs, the velvet robes of carcasses on deer hoists in bow season, and window shades handmade from sheets.This place of Cheez Whiz and knockoff pop.This place where cars on blocksarchitect strange piles in…
We pretended not to see him weeping, the fogclotted in his throat. His filthy coat. Someunforeseen disaster always coming for him.He often went missing, fell asleep in the snow.How could we know? We triednot to see him, flinching at the sun, at whateverloomed above him. The fist of the fathercoming down hard on the head…
A polite town. The mountainswearing purple for our pleasure, clouds holding their snowy breathso everyone’s clueless parentscould get home safe from work.“I’m gonna die here,” Shauna says, her head up against the chain-linksuch that when she angles to catch mein her periphery there’s a red X indented in her brow like a responseon a test,…
R. F. Fortune, Sorcerers of Dobu (1932) They say he slept with his wifeLast night—but did he sleepWith his wife or was sheFar away? With an empty skinBy his side he slept. It looks for sure like he sleptWith his wife, but who’s to sayThat was her by his sideAnd not the hide she leftAs away she…
At this time of day, goldish-gray rains down and our garden plot turns to mud.I forgot to plant anything this year, but it’s totally fine because I saw a headline, Honey Bees Are Not At Risk of Extinction. For this, I praise last year’s plumeof borage, chamomile, salvia. So this is how things will be…
You’d think it was a teenager in a rented tuxgoing to the prom in a borrowed car butit’s a cedar waxwing in his cupsdrunk on juniper berries.I get it.I was allowed one dance at the senior promas my mother worriedI might have sex right after—disgracing the Lord and the familyin that order.The Lord in those…
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