Poetry

A Christmas forest dies along West Ninth Street. There is no disease. Men come home from work, drag the little northern pines shedding their fishbone needles down narrow, carpeted stairs. Noble logs now, hirsute & dog-high, stand at my side, pettable — Looking down on this thing, I see my left shoe is scuffed &…

In these nights, I lay on my side, curl-up like an ear, and wait for the blank wafer called sleep, the dark hesitation between day and day; wait for the comma in the white noise of life. I have counted all my bones; aloneness is cold. I need you, father seed, to come back, to…

On it lives one bird who commences singing, for some reason best known to itself, at precisely 4 a.m. Each day I listen for it in the night. I too have a song to say alone but can't begin. On it, surrounded by blocks of black warehouses, is located this room. I say this room,…

Popsicle stick is the diminutive of tongue depressor, it is a serious implement to contemplate, you reach with your little pink chocolated hands, you want more— my large clean hand withdraws what was once the ice cream bar I shared with my baby son, we cleaned it with our last licks, & I dry it…

In the drafty land of a day's work, where bone saws sing down to the tone of marrow, these men in white coats live out my dream surgeons gone wild. Outside, I hear the mallet man, halting the morning between eyes with his dull thud, and the knife of the skinner slips beneath hides, the…

Let it start to rain, the streets are empty now. Over the roof hear the leaves coldly conversing in whispers; a page turns in the book left open by the window. The streets are empty, now it can begin. I am not there. Like you I wasn’t present at the burial. This morning I have…

When a child dies & it is newsworthy, the newsman comes & searches the crowd, our eyes for the delegate. One of us who can't wait to tell him before the heavily equipped one, one like a soldier, the cameraman, “It is a shame, he had his whole life ahead of him” or “He didn't…

Upstairs my husband types our wills, Pressing the keys with one finger. The sound makes eerie counterpoint, To all the birds, newly arrived. We have assigned our house and cats. We've looked at our insurance forms. The will must be typed perfectly. The drafts are growing at his feet. The typing stops, then starts again…

The street deserted. Nobody, only you and one poor dirt colored robin, fastened to its branch against the wind. It seems you have arrived late, the city unfamiliar, the address lost. And you made such a serious effort — pondered the obstacles deeply, tried to be your own critic. Yet no one came to listen….