POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Sadness is a Sin

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

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

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.

Fallout Shelter

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

Making Israeli Salad

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

Electric Eels, Finishing School, Teeth

Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.

Soft Porn and Cuban Pine

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

I could, even now, go down to the water

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

necromancer woman, witch woman

In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers,
my back a misguided quote

appetites

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

“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.

Good Driver

Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

love poem with dead leaves & color

I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.

An Endeavor of Being Now

We stop doing dishes while
a mile unwinds
from the tree outside.

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.

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.

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

Pit Stop in Kansas

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts