POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Dis Place Ment

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

The State School 1984 His Given Name Was Wilbur  We Called Him Magpie

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

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.

Landscape with Ash

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

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

Sadness is a Sin

If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.

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.

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

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

Getting Postcards From a Piano Showroom

The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

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

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

A Way of Seeing

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

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.

The Man

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

Lavandula

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

Babylon

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

beach
On Undressing a Color / On Undressing a Girl

I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.

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.