POETRY

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

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

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.

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Dis Place Ment

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

First

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

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.

Good Driver

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

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

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

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…

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

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.

All In

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt

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.

[Zoetrope with Particulates in it and a Newborn]

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

Babylon

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