Poetry

           I’ve shorn over two hunn’ert in a day,            but big sheep knocks you about. I used            to go mad at it, twisting and turning            all night. Couldn’t sleep after a rough            day with the sheep. 1 In town, in the foodshop, the men are making sandwiches, cutting bread, cutting meat,…

for&nbsp— This is a simple poem Because our lives can be simple. On the pier, Listening to the fish Gather in the shallow waters, the wind Blowing across the phosphorus, I stood for hours in the pale halos of the harbor. I was thinking of you, the way An arm remembers salt burning the skin….

                 for Pop, my grandfather                        (Martin Gavin) she told me the story when I was sixteen over whiskey sours whipped up with the white of an egg It was late afternoon a warm rain wriggling down through the soot on the windows the kitchen so warm it felt like summer but,…

It’s raining like the day you walked out, harmonica in your pocket, the suitcase of shirts. I’m thinking of you again, with your variety of wives: the cajun, my mother the Greek, and Alberta, the Texas peach. Reminded by this dull rain and every man I see absently touching the child, of how you smiled…

With my daughter drowsing on the curve of my stomach, her wet stripe socks kick my legs I tell her rainbow stories: I imagine everyone in the world, a big pile heaped lying on top of each other each rubbing and scratching the back of the person above. In this massage coins tumble from pockets,…

Who is this Judi’s Jack Are his steps wider than his yawns quicker Than Judi’s smile or does he stroll with a smirk Real fine, real tough Who is this Judi’s Jack sitting in a puddle His feet in the air, hands folded together He has been seen late at night calling to the birds…

Rewarded chocolate chip cookies after white ankles at first holy communion. Frankincense and abstinence hand in hand, girl boy girl boy canter to the altar christian doctrine right front wheel. Loose. Catechism question one; who made you? God almighty who at twelve years old can answer that existential phenomenon two; your soul, how must you…

Perched on each others tongues To fly Where now are the angels In what pursuit plunged vaporously Who late will sniff your crotch for eternity The wind is rising The diamond that divides the faces of a wound The surface of our planet should be waxed To make the wind go faster Than the windmills…

Leaving here, I slip out the gates of the palace garden      as autumn stuns the trees with remembrance                        and makes them come around again                                          like a memory of dervish flutes. In my mind I hear the word perfect.                  My feet touch down into cool…