Poetry

The woman wore a floral apron around her neck, that woman from my mother's village with a sharp cleaver in her hand. She said, “What shall we cook tonight? Perhaps these six tiny squids lined up so perfectly on the block?” She wiped her hand on her apron, pierced the blade into the first. There…

Peter died in a paper tiara cut from a book of princess paper dolls; he loved royalty, sashes and jewels. I don't know, he said, when he woke in the hospice, I was watching the Bette Davis film festival on Channel 57 and then— At the wake, the tension broke when someone guessed the casket…

I am small and don't want much at all. I live in a striped quilt And curl up near the door. Grandpa tripped On me and broke his jaw. I drop My doll's head in the cake. I always wear pink. I smile in school and dunk My own curls in the ink. I share…

War chariots thunder, horses neigh, the barbarians are coming. What are we waiting for, young nubile women pointing at the wall,      the barbarians are coming. They have heard about a weakened link in the wall.      So, the barbarians have ears among us. So deceive yourself with illusions: you are only one woman,      holding one broken…

What hazed around the branches      late in March was white at first,            as if a young tree's ghost were blazing in the woods,      a fluttering around the limbs            like shredded sleeves. A week later, green fountaining,      frothing champagne;            against the dark of evergreen, that skyrocket shimmer. I think      this is how our…

There is a crooked keloid scar on the side of Tally's golden face that says, “I don't give a damn.” Around his neck he wears the Star of David—no special      significance. His left arm from shoulder down is tattooed marine-blue and between me and you, Tally ain't all there. But why should he care? Down…

Her phone not ringing his hand not tightening on hers not his wiry beard scratching her cheek or his pocked look of having looked at her and not looked again Not his toothbrush on a neat wood shelf far from the sink, the hallway stacked with papers, hung with paintings of nudes without features, shoulders…

The blue light of the teevee glowed on our blue faces. Ray Charles sang of Georgia on his mind. “His mind? That nigger doesn't have a mind!” Grandmomma said. She threw her tatting down on her lap, hawked once, dipped snuff, and glowered at the teevee set. “Damn niggers taking over teevee. You can't watch…

I feel cloudy, stumble often, knock my skull on the roof of the car getting in because I'm having a stint of daydreams. In one it's raining, weeks of it, then for no reason sunlight returns fingersnapping through trees. In this one it's Paris, a lonely attic, I remove a letter from its ragged envelope…