POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
painting of apple and grapes
Feast Of

anger, like you can sink teeth into, candy apple

heavy rain
The Plot

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

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.

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.

My Multiverses

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

necromancer woman, witch woman

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

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

All In

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

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

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

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

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

The River

I myself should never have been born

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

robertson quay

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

Babylon

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

First

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

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.

Several someones

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

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.