POETRY

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

heavy rain
The Plot

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

Lavandula

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

Existential

four-thirty a.m.

All In

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

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

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.

books
Ode To the Dove Pt. V (Avrom Sutzkever)

I am still waiting for the lion

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

Electric Eels, Finishing School, Teeth

Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.

painting of apple and grapes
Feast Of

anger, like you can sink teeth into, candy apple

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.

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.

Condolences

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

Getting Postcards From a Piano Showroom

The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

The River

I myself should never have been born

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

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

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.