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.

robertson quay

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

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”

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

“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 Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

Clueless & Briefly Gorgeous

I buy too much, for someone of my stature.
could pawn a skinny metaphor to purchase a plump skin.
its reputed in our lineage— to daydream a life that shreds our pockets.

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.

Welcome To The House of Static

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

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.

Aging Punks

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

Babylon

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

Lobster

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

There is an alternative universe

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

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

The River

I myself should never have been born

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

A Beautiful Thing

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

Sprung (April)

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