POETRY

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

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

oh Manifesto

The collective
failure
of ethical standards

The River

I myself should never have been born

appetites

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

Making Israeli Salad

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

Dear Deer in the Compost Pile

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

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.

Unerased | Steep Steps

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

Willpower

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

“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.

The State School 1984 His Given Name Was Wilbur  We Called Him Magpie

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

Good Driver

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

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.

Sprung (April)

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

Letter To a Young Poet

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

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.

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.

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.