Poetry

  • Cuts Buttons Off an Old Sweater

    It takes a needle to complete the job—      pick the two choked eyes empty of the thread,      pick out the particles of sweater wool. It takes a dark, thin book to tray the pickings      (they're hard to gather off her skirt, the floor)      and chute them in the trash can;      takes her tea-tin container for…

  • Ornithology

    Gone to seed, ailanthus, the poverty      tree. Take a phrase, then fracture it, the pods' gaudy nectarine shades            ripening to parrots taking flight, all crest and tail feathers.                        A musical idea.                                                      Macaws      scarlet and violet,                                    tangerine as a…

  • Letter to a Wound

    We never had a cabin in the woods. We never had a yard, a dog, a child. We never lived in the same neighborhood. We never ate, half-naked, on a tiled terrace over the vineyards in Languedoc, or drank milkshakes on the toweled front seat of that fifth-hand Chevy pickup truck whose gears required a…

  • Finally

    Two lovers met. It wasn't lovers' lane, But a lesser traveled road. No others came. One lover held the other's hand. The other Man was me. I watched as if I hovered Far above the scene. And as the sky Began to prickle with the stars, I tried To understand why the other couldn't free…

  • Father’s Day

    1985 Rain. Ten years since we have spoken. Since Ma's suicide, fifteen. Triage of families: who to attend to—the widowed, the childless, the orphaned? When you smashed the kitchen radio all the calm times you played piano went dead too, just another symptom, though you swept up before sending me to my room. On those…

  • The Greek Statuette

    The question he so casually raises, hand fisted on slim hip, is What endures? The small terra-cotta figure shows the rough brown beneath the smooth black in random places; a chip on his shoulder, a small bite taken from the stylish behind. But he endures, gracefully. More than that: mockingly. No one his age should…