Poetry

“Fire at a Brooklyn Warehouse Puts Private Lives on Display,”(1 Feb 2015, The New York Times) No lives were lost. Nothing was guttedbut the crumpling warehouse and its contents:medical forms, court transcripts, sonograms, bank checks. They’re like treasure maps,someone said of the half-charred scraps.But they weren’t. This was the opposite— it was as if the…

It’s 11:02.I was supposed to take the kids outside at 10:13.My underwear is over my head.I’m trying to sniff out the boy I once was,my private parts tiny and nutmeg.I didn’t give a shit about Superman.I was in love with Watergate.Watergate was my super hero.All that corruption. That darkness.Those men in black suits, greasy hair,…

In this new country of ours we will, let’s face it, be endlessly debating,endlessly refining, so much talking!—at least in the beginning, whenwe’ve just arrived. And probably later as well, always arriving as we arein this mortality, with so much to say and so little mind-reading. Wewill continue to use words to say our ideas…

In our new country we will notice, cherish, entirely disregard time, in-hale hours and exhale days, float and surf and snorkel into the minutesand years, time like a blanket over or under us, wrapped around ourbeachchilled skin. Our time will be free of owners, a fact of life on thisparticular planet, like air and sea,…

In the new country we will bike through the town in most weather,barrowing smaller humans or parcels in the front when we must or like,pulling wagons, flashing our prettiest wheel-lights at night, double-riding, even triple-riding. Mostly we will wheel through the streets at aleisurely speed allowing for chitchat, perhaps playing the old music outof tiny…

In our new country, all toilets will be composting toilets, inside orouthouse, some with wide stalls for wheelchairs, some with built-in stepsfor small humans, mostly sit-down and some with urinals, for easiestcollection of the pee we will feed microbial fuel cells from which later wewill shear electricity. And we will build such clever sewers, such…

If the men from town call in the crux of night,then they are calling to misinform you. If they say come quick your brother’s in jail,then that’s not what they mean. If you go to town but your brother’s not in jail,then this time he cannot be saved. If your brother cannot be sprung from…

They came to arrest meFor kissing a Lieutenant’s wife while kissing A sergeant’s sister while romancing with the motherOf the assistant undersecretary of state: My shoes in front of my lifeI run— Soldiers arrest our womenAnd the flag is the towel the wind dries its hands on. I need a drink. Yes, in bombardment even…

          She sucks at a cigarette butt and yells                                                                 to a soldier,          “Go home! You haven’t kissed your wife since Noah was a sailor!” Madame Momma Galya Armolinskaya, what would we give to ride     beside you in a yellow taxi,                                             away from funerals                    two windows open,                              throwing milk bottles                    at police check points?                     Momma Galya Armolinskaya,                              ah,                              by the avenue’s wet walls yells:                    Deafness isn’t an…