POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
All In

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

“Artifact,” as Translated from Gluberhöff’s Lexicon

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

3:17 AM as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

Clueless & Briefly Gorgeous

I buy too much, for someone of my stature.
could pawn a skinny metaphor to purchase a plump skin.
its reputed in our lineage— to daydream a life that shreds our pockets.

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

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.

Making Israeli Salad

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Like dirt

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

Babylon

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

Time Travel

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

Back Suplex

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

The River

I myself should never have been born

Letter To a Young Poet

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

woman at bar
After She Told Me You Pushed Her Down the Stairs

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.

Snow Falls from Branches

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

Welcome To The House of Static

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

On the Night Row-Houses Across the Street Catch Fire

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

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.