Poetry

Hegeso

Her hand waves to dispel illusions. Insensitive to photons of light she doesn't stir for the clink of skeletons diving through. . . This one, the special one, proved the existence of sublimation aging on the sea-rocks, and there is no glimmer, no star-flash comparable to his lips, his intangible touch.

The Water on the Lake

The water on the lake is still as love become permanent desire, like oil. The fields for hundreds of years fields of grass, potatoes, sugarbeets or wheat, are a graveyard where the stones look southward in a soft curve and the country road is a suburban street. Here my father lies dead by his own…

Final Groove

I first danced there on the warm linoleuin of our kitchen in my father's arms. Our hands clasped, feet scraping across the floor. I felt so comfortable with this, my first dance— as he led, and the music played on. The needle scraped in the final groove. I felt his grip release, our blood flow…

Our Faces

Our faces pored over his grave in benevolent incomprehension. He swims in his coffin like a diver watching the surface above—our faces small as petals breaking in the change of seasons. Our silence blooms rust and yellow, desperate as chrysanthemums. The cooler weather wears the bones in the body down to the heart.

Home Rivers

As a child I didn't learn to logroll good or know it was a sport. To reach a clearing of summer-smooth water where I plopped a red float and hooked line to fish for carp With arms extended      I'd glide dance skip jump run land on vast islands of logs spinning wet waiting for tugboats…

Firewalk

1. If under the full snow moon you can keep breathing—I'll be glad if I'm alive tomorrow, I said to myself driving the back roads in yet another storm. I had never seen such poverty—Mae stoking her stove from six in the morning until late at night. “Kind of lonesome, don't you know, alone, the…

Sea-Maid

By the selvage of the sea-green water I arise, sand-cast from the hands of two young girls. Born through the sun-baked unselfconsciousness of hours, embroidered with flotsam. An abalone, mother of pearl becomes my sea ear. With this shimmering bowl I listen to every sound. A flotilla of sea lace, scooped up dripping, waves for…