Even as we speak, there’s a smoker’s cough from behind the whitethorn hedge: we stop dead in our tracks; a distant tingle of water into a trough. In the past half-hour—since a cattle truck all but sent us shuffling off this mortal coil— we’ve consoled ourselves with the dregs of a bottle of Redbreast. Had…
after Akhmatova They had no time—the just man hurried across the bridge, followed God’s magistrate along the black ridge. His grieving wife lagged behind as if she had no will, arms heavy with useless things, heart heavier still. She couldn’t recall if she’d shut the door, turned off the iron; worse guilt, she’d left behind…
for Norma Crowded cemeteries Everyone builds high into the sky trying to get closer to Jesus Empty wine bottles The church bells ringing calling todo el mundo to the evening rosary Poverty as revealed through the use of flowers and bright colors like a Mexican’s house yellow red pink blue scarlet purple You never seen…
AS As you come and go from a place you sense the way it might seem to one truly there as these clearly determined persons move on the complex spaces and hurry to their obvious or so seeming to you destinations. “Home,” you think, “is a place still there for all,” yet now you cannot…
The contractions Have come Too soon You are sentenced To bed in the country house During the tedious hours Your sons scrap Your husband courts An imaginary lover You summon the living Mothers: Hagar Of the bitter smile Sarah Whose laughter lies Rebecca Who outwits men…
for Bruce What I miss most about the city are the angels and the bars of Manhattan: faithful Cannon’s and the Night Cafe; the Corner Bistro and the infamous White Horse; McKenna’s maniacal hockey fans; the waitresses at Live Bait; lounges and taverns, taps and pubs; joints, dives, spots, clubs; all the Blarney Stones and…
after Stephen Hawking Jimmy Alvarez and Emilio Sanchez and his brother are absent forever, each shot in the head in the park, and so their membership has lapsed with the Latin Kings. Slumped in their car seats, they look as if they drank too much except that their lips are frosted white over pearl and…
At peace with all creatures not me I incite a fireship to torch the horizon with flamboyance pouring over blue snow toward the mesa I stand on—out of a quirk little nobler than phototropism, and loving to see our morning world happen and the centuries turn in my absence. Among powdery drifts a distant coyote…
When they were still young and love was not yet their protection, he fell, though only once, into what he called another woman’s arms. But she understood him, and speaking the language of betrayal, she understood him to mean another woman’s legs, and it was this understanding she was trying to swallow. If I…
No products in the cart.