POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Hollywood Hills
the remarkable thing

I am still waiting for the lion

Unerased | Steep Steps

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Like dirt

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

robertson quay

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

Sprung (April)

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

Dis Place Ment

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

The River

I myself should never have been born

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

“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.

Letter To a Young Poet

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

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.

Finding My Fix

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

Making Israeli Salad

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

There is an alternative universe

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

Good Driver

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

Welcome To The House of Static

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

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

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.

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.