Poetry

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…

When it snows after a train wreck, I like the people to crawl out and celebrate a little, to think about winter. I like it when they open their battered suitcases and dedicate some clothing to the wind, or when they build a fire and huddle around it, singing . . . Why should they…

Dad screwed another cigarette into his lips crossed his legs folded his workman’s arms along his weed-stained lap (you can’t speak now not to him he isn’t here just watch watch him climb over the shed the chubby lawn home. watch my daddy smoke fantasy.)

By the end of this story, the house next door should be in flames, but that may never happen. In his dream, there is no house. Instead, he has stolen the blueprints. He ignites them with a handful of matches. And now the dream has already changed. It has nothing to do with fire. He…

it didn’t take long for papa to find his place. he sat down on the coffee table and pulled out his matches. the first one lit easily so he put it on the floor between his feet and the flame sandwich ate him up. mama came in screaming and running about like my rabbits in…

The earth swept clean of creatures not its own: earth, ocean, air, to you do we belong only? No! The long climb up from slime turning on a dime      remains, hanging on by a thread to the dead generations, lowly, encapsulated though once I read in TIME, that wisdom of the week we twitchy moderns…

And now here is a message to all those people for whom there is no hope:

“. . . it is not War which is tearing up the world, it is Conscience . . .”      —in The Fixer “The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?”      —St. Augustine `How does it feel when you fall?‘ Asked plainly enough at the dinner table Mother…