POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Unerased | Steep Steps

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

Letter To a Young Poet

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

Landscape with Ash

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

My Multiverses

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

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

Sadness is a Sin

If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.

Like dirt

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

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

Hollywood Hills
the remarkable thing

I am still waiting for the lion

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

Willpower

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

necromancer woman, witch woman

In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers,
my back a misguided quote

Fallout Shelter

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

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

Lavandula

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

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

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

Pit Stop in Kansas

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

Sprung (April)

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

Electric Eels, Finishing School, Teeth

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