poetry

abandoned poems

The River

I myself should never have been born

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

Landscape with Ash

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

Good Driver

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

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

if detritus is all i’m made up of

my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house

Sadness is a Sin

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

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

Babylon

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

Making Israeli Salad

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

love poem with dead leaves & color

I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.

Pit Stop in Kansas

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

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…

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

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.

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

Going Broke

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.