Poetry

  • A Certain Squint

    (“You can even make something not a poem become a poem . . . by a certain squint or a certain way of leaning our ears we find them.” W.S.) If I could only squint like Bill Stafford then I would be in that country where men and women speak poetry, unsurprised, as trees speak…

  • News From Home

    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….

  • Apology for Loneliness

    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…

  • Circe

    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…

  • Freudian Slip

    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…

  • How You Were Born

    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…

  • October

    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…

  • Rerun Scene: You Rescue My Son

    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…

  • Juncture

    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,…