POETRY

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

The River

I myself should never have been born

Back Suplex

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

You can’t make them love you, no matter how artfully you betray yourself

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

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.

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

Existential

four-thirty a.m.

necromancer woman, witch woman

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

Good Driver

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

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.

Poem in Collaboration with a Broken iPhone

I’msorry I‘ll see what happens iLife

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.

Finding My Fix

I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

An astrologer examines the luminaries governing her love life only to find

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

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

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…

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

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.