POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
My Multiverses

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

All In

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt

The love of my life moved from portland to new england

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards

Babylon

If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

The River

I myself should never have been born

Soft Porn and Cuban Pine

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

robertson quay

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

Ode To the Dove Pt. VI (Avrom Sutzkever)

Yes I am guilty, I’m guilty. A sin was desirable then.
Bring the dancer back to the stalks.

A Way of Seeing

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

Going Broke

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

Lavandula

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

i do not want to wait until it’s too late

the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

REVENGE SCENE

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.