Poetry

  • John Muir

    He made a crude wooden clock that threw him out of bed, a strong-armed Gabriel, he called it. such genius watched the new bone carriages tottering down their chutes, the magical brooms kicking their heels            spreading around the world, until one flipped and the file      sailed from his hand into the sclera. for months…

  • Wasps

    In the orchards we would take A rolled-up newspaper and light it, And shove this torch into a wasps’ nest. In a moment the hive Would be thick with dead wasps. Only one or two flying out of the fire. *     *      * Now, when I walk in the shade of these trees, I know they…

  • Blue Angel

    Unhealthy nymph you come toward me with glitter of decadence sequin drenched blue angel with hectic flush and slanting eyes hard bodied doll tough hands chalked dry you pump, rise drum against the membrane like an infant’s head against the bag of waters held at twelve o’clock the limits of the law What are you…

  • Circles

    My father keeps a circle of silver coins around his bed to trap angels. When they arrive to reclaim his soul the silver disintegrates the strange alloy in their wings. My mother poises at a snow-circle’s center in a game of “fox & geese” while her children disappear down a radius into some woods forever….

  • Putting Mother By

    We are in her kitchen; we have one enormous pot and all the spices are together. We are too tiny and take so long to sterilize the jar; finally, more water is boiling, waiting. We don’t have to call, she hears and comes into her kitchen. We lift her over the pot. she slips into…

  • Fishes

    What human love can compare To the compassion of fishes? For us, the kisses of the mouth Are enough, but for them It isn’t too much To open their whole insides To receive one of their children To bring him out again unharmed To reanimate him with their heat To revive them To live as…

  • The Luminist at Age Eleven

    She’s heard that apples go silver in moonlight, That the lavender cloud Of phlox along the wall Is absorbed by rocks, and that even The steady, village church is eaten away On a night like this. They told her when the moon shines Through a stained-glass window, there are no Reds or blues crossing the…

  • Plumbing the Silence

    The silence of the Bionassay with its uneven glitter, blue-gray knife sculpting the mountain as when I whittle at distances so that they meet the eye, at light, a possibility towards which a single leaf unfolds. Beyond the timberline where silence enters the skin and jangles the small nerves of the teeth, the mountain glistens…