POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
painting of apple and grapes
Feast Of

anger, like you can sink teeth into, candy apple

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

Snow Falls from Branches

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

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.

robertson quay

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

Sprung (April)

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

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.

Landscape with Ash

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

The River

I myself should never have been born

Despairathon

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

Dis Place Ment

People have always coped with flooding, and they learned to cope with death.

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

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.

Making Israeli Salad

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

Like dirt

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

There is an alternative universe

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.