poetry

The door in the field is held upright by my saying so. Frogs before storm, wind on the rise. The door opens and I still can’t see what lies on the other side. I decide like a deer tasting the … Read More

On the Buda side the gypsies have no one left to steal from. They burn trash at night, sending yellow smoke into the subway. They leave handprints on the tiled walls to show they belong to this city. The streets … Read More

1979 which the aunts pronounced gowumkee you know cabbage rolls honey and packed into a crockpot pasted all over with pictures of happy brown daisies and then balanced them on the plush backseat   of a cream-colored Delta 88 bought … Read More

I want to find the way of the ants, how they build dirt mounds out of human flesh, how they destroy and then carry the little corpses of leaves and twigs on their tiny backs. My way into their fetching … Read More

Toward evening When I grow bored I try to imagine my killer     —“Toward Evening,” Novica Tadić The evil eye was born at the same time as light. Let there be light. And the good eye became full of it, like … Read More

The stableboy leads, drives on the chestnut horse. Tears form in the tear ducts of the horse’s eye. In the silent swamp the dry reeds clatter like a pilgrim’s staff. Where are you leading that horse, my boy? The boy … Read More

“It’s autumn,” I write, and a boat without sails arhythmically scrapes at my heart— as long as it can. All the cards have been played, and the hand-made rock fountains, labor of my mother’s hands, that gave us something to … Read More

The word ‘bloom’ is a grenade. Pull out the L-pin, and boom.   The dandelion turns into a piñata, confetti blizzard; exploding   is an efficient way to start pollinating. Plant landmines in the garden bed.   Don’t keep off … Read More

Tesla runs away to a high onion-dome chapel     entombing him the night. It is off-season for wobbling pilgrims, affording the child his very own necessity     of dread. Fleeing— the point is there is no final shelter, only a constellation of … Read More

I preferred their 5 am chirps in the rafters to my roommate’s sex groans. But what a lazy renter I was, never climbing the attic for a sight or paging their song in the Audubon.     I learned to ignore their … Read More

I sometimes see a fox from my window: brush of brown, echo of red by the woods— more a suggestion of a fox, shadow of movement. Just when I think there is no fox, I see him large and real. … Read More

Something loosens, the grip of gravity slipping as sleep approaches. A buoyant heart rises, wanting its own view. And why not—here, now the roof the floor, and heaven there for the taking. Nothing is pinned down. I am full of … Read More