Poetry

I liked the joyful sound of the piano coming from the open door where a few departing partygoers giggled, arms linked. I went in. But despite the pianist’s spirit and those lively partygoers, this party was on its last legs. A brown-haired woman with a brass hoop around her neck and an empty martini glass…

after Peter Harris   A Japanese shrine is lit by ten thousand candles. One by one, jungle crows carry the candles away to the fields. The flight does not extinguish the flame—the wick remains hot. Then, the crows bury their new light under dry leaves, saving the tallow in the wax for another day. They’ll…

is a bone you dig out of your body with another bone   because how else can I describe the kind of time it takes forgiveness to thicken inside a body   which is divided into various half-heartedly warring nations   a dry forest waiting for the sky to blush   a parking garage ringed…

“They know locks are important,” the nurse says when she sees me watching a man, younger than my father, twist the switch of a deadbolt nailed to the wall in the dayroom—one of many locks nailed to the wall. Puzzles that can never be solved. Total fake-outs. A tumbler lock, a sliding door latch, an…

I’m surprised how long it takes her heart to stop. Strong old girl. Dr. Murrell keeps the stethoscope pressed to her ribs. I lean down in front of her unblinking eyes.   “You’re a good dog, Abby,” I assure her. Deb, Denny, and Dr. Murrell agree. “You are a good dog, Abby.” A beat or…

She held my dog’s paw like a gentle jewel. Wind blew her hair into a moonlit arc of ocean. I sat on the tub while she shaved her legs. We shrugged in the downpour. Playground wings and swings, unchained laughter. The pop of her lips released the bottle and her grin. Naked on the porch….

Soldiers gnawed the ends of twigs to make brushes. What they sketched would be used to identify them when they were returned to their families for ancestor worship. Gun oil as paint. The war-dead accrued on their papers. Roofs broken in with jacketed lead and herbicides, an expanse of fire. It was the end of…

What will you write about your final day? On that last page the words require truth’s grain.   What use is one more journey’s destination? The sweet surprises of another day?   What, when the great fire roars through your home? What, when the earth’s fault slips with its sundering?   What passion can you…

It’s alright to overdress for the riot. Your rage is stunning. It’s alright to pursue the wrong pleasures and the right suffering. Here’s my permission. Take it. It’s alright to replace a siren   with a bell. Let the emergency make some music. It’s alright that the meter reader broke your sunflower in half. You…