POETRY

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

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

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…

Willpower

Live the rest of your life
from one worst case to another.

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

Finding My Fix

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

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

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

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.

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.

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

Sprung (April)

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

Black Ghosts of Ponderosa on a Silhouette of Hill

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

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

Vase

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

There is an alternative universe

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

An Endeavor of Being Now

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