POETRY

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

The sin is existing.

“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.

Vase

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

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.

Mom, in Her Dementia, Steals Oranges

and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub
at the Assisted Living Place

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.

Good Driver

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

[Zoetrope with Particulates in it and a Newborn]

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

love poem with dead leaves & color

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

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.

Lavandula

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

Despairathon

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

Pit Stop in Kansas

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

Back Suplex

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

if detritus is all i’m made up of

my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

heavy rain
The Plot

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

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt