So many times I answer the phone trembling Because of the losses of the past, Concoct a disaster, Never correctly. My young aunt has a tumor, Cancer in the liver and lungs. Didn’t she serve mostaccioli and meatballs A few weeks ago? She said she was tired. At her wedding I was the flower girl….
She writes that she senses my loneliness and wonders if it’s good or if it maims and I wonder also. But can she sense how it is at the end of the day, after working well and leaving my dinner to cook, when I lie down and feel the darkness seep through the house? Does…
His knock was worth answering slowly, Teasingly, “Who’s there?”, letting my features, My fragrance break on him in the doorway Like the memory of a phantasy. He was surprised to hear his nickname On my lips; yes, he would “step in for a bit.” Daisies and good silver set my table, Dazzling him, keeping his…
Though she coaxes the embroidered silk over her head with the care of someone attending a ball, the slip is transparent, and in the moonlight filtering through the bedroom window, her body is even more real for its inspired accidents: her breasts brazen and shy both at once, mangos and the ordinary flesh. It is…
For six years, having no child, your father and I taped cardboard to our window, photographed butterflies on Sundays, ate or did not eat, fought over who would do dishes. I entertain you with stories. . . . Our white dog as a pup came home purple — the next day I found the pokeberry…
My mouth starts speaking in another direction Of how apples are falling into red smoke And the sun no longer publishes each leaf, or name. I want to know what’s forbidden, To enter that space An apple takes from the heart of tree. Dark radiance, your hands have unpeeled this story To the edge of…
The river is fast and black and theatrically high. Chest-deep, you strain, lean against the current. You hand me up Keith, dripping and cough-crying From the fast black river I’ve climbed from. I run him breathless to the house, bone-cold, blue, Hurry him into a hot tub. The skin, numb, stings Back to feeling. The…
Seated in the dark, my elbows propped on the kitchen table, I cannot clearly recollect you who move inside me like water within motion though I choose you over and over with care, and though my notion of air beats in my temples as if I’ve gone through your heart to get to it. Touchable,…
The yellow ball just clears the net, skids low. Your racket reaches, flicks, and floats it back. We hit this poem together and watch it shuttle, Weave against the green of someone else’s youth, The emerald pathos of a dozen different parks. Back and forth, we build a rhythm, increase the pace, Then break. With…
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