Poetry

And yet, off alone, we were happy with what stayed the same, and we stood there in the space between world and plaything, upon a spot which, from the beginning had been established for pure event. —Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Fourth Elegy” Translated by Edward Snow     Beneath the highway, the stream was…

Lake-deep black of night and no song we sing will do. After pillow forts, Minotaur       lullabies, glow-in-the-dark starfighters,     shadow animals’ chomp and gallop, wing-     flap and pearl—between flood tide and lightning     bloom, our son keeps awake and smiles, rhymes storm   with remember, bird with brother with Earth. I kiss the rise…

Because Ariel speaks of a king’s son, his boats aflame, crying Hell is empty, and all the devils are here, I ask my son to tell me about love. He chalks crowns and rockets across newsprint, draws wolves, rain clouds, an owlet, says You love me—and my mama. I love triceratops. We try   these…

Mama called me one thing, named me another. Gave me a mouth on my stomach and fed me. Tied my ankles. Lit a fire round me and called it purification. Placed her own veil over my head. Kissed my belly mouth. Said it was good. It was hard to eat and speak. I didn’t want…

I am sometimes in pain and occasionally sit to write my name in dark inks and the brush goes wobbly, as if excited into shapes without me. The crop fields of someone’s childhood still bother the edges of my vision, tawny gridded country, low born, wind gripping the assembled heads of wheat, bristling. One job…

The opening to another country was always inside my father’s mind, in many forms, in dreams: green swords   swirling in a winter mist, colorful moths, sometimes a molar falling out, porcelain clattering onto the table   like a single rung chime. When I come into the house, I am held by him, become a…

now my mother wants to walk out to the rock, the two of us on the wide empty trail, blasted red dust in every direction, fat black flies diving into our faces. this is before she got sick, though i suppose the disease is still there, heat-shimmer under her feet, stones closed over scorpions, over…

The aunt with a wand directs the boys Push that sofa catty-cornered. They do and think it’s a fresh start. It held that spot once before they were born. But our women get an itch. When the boys not around we move the furniture again ourselves leaning our shoulders into chifforobes, making fine scratches on…

Because loss is the back of the photograph we never look at, I write your deathbed scenario on the palm of my hand while your husband prays and your mother brings dessert to the funeral. So sensitive, I hear you say at the edge of heaven, the end of history, so strange how we’re here…