Author Archives: Salamander

  I knew a bullnecked man in Kansas, born of woman, plowman, fellow man, he turned into a swan. The dust and yellow corn of Kansas in the sun, the same sun burned   the windblown soul of him. The … Read More

  “Window” was vind-auga, if I remember old Norse right—the “wind-eye” for smoke to spiral out and light to finger in at some hollowed cranny high by thatch, open slot to let the stave-house breathe by dim fjord or Iceland … Read More

  Aotearoa, since the Oligocene Drowning Event, has been overrun by ground parrots, improbable weta, bats that scoot on their bellies, daughters in a state of ecological release, free from ancestral interdependence, able to establish new niches. Anyway, that’s my story. … Read More

  If he were in hospital, unable to speak, I would hold his hand, creature to creature. I’d do that for anyone. Rough brush of fingerprints. Hello, I’m sorry to hear you’re sick. In my ears, cicada buzz of arterial … Read More

  there’s nothing in the etiquette guides for a marriage                    so short so I wake early on a Saturday, bring home Subway                        the egg whites because I want you to live forever   or at least outlast me … Read More

I opened the door but you did not enter.   It is easiest to blame the angel. Fact: a woman who walks beneath its outstretched wings will miscarry.   There is no leavetaking but that which the body allows.   … Read More

– in memory of Kurt Brown It shows tremendous presence without a lot of weight, this wine from Côte-Rôtie,   this supermodel from Marseille who cheats at poker, legs better than the wine’s,   this lightness in my step as … Read More

The Red Leaf was of the blood of Christ—“Advice to Little Children,” The New-England Primer, 1727   Berries of Fever-bush thrive incarnadine incarnate— though the first hard Frost has kissed Verbena, Hyssop, Thyme and, touching, turned them black. Where is Heaven’s white … Read More

  North of Timber Management Solutions, amid the gaping   concentric sun-circuitry of truncated fir-stumps, fireweed flourishes,   fireweed crackles like the feedback of a sun-struck accord.   Fireweed, fireweed, uninvited honeyed weather where acres were,   radio telescopes sound … Read More

  Not the Book of Wonders, not the Way, not the Word,   but crying in Wilderness, Make ready, the mightier Text is yet to come—   I blaze the Trail.   And I’m followed, fondly, ’til hands receive the … Read More

  Two by two the kernels hit the metal pail, blue stalks stiff as thin batons stripped green braids from yellow tails,   nightshade cast in shadows between fronds. They grow like cattails in the barley light, reaching upward across … Read More

                                                             for Julie Frega   Next week, I’ll tie a string … Read More