poetry

  On the fourth day, I was standing in the front yard stretching after a run (I don’t run), slightly high on endorphins. I could suddenly see everything O the purple spikes on the Pride of Madeira bush just coming … Read More

  I ask my students, What’s at stake in this poem? I ask my daughters, Did you do your schoolwork? I ask my husband, Did you remember to cover the drains, so cockroaches don’t emerge at night, walk the hallways … Read More

  —after Philip Lawson (1859-1936) The chicken proves accurate in its back and forth: the way I traveled up from Virginia backward on boat, rail, and foot— never acting on that deep knowing turned gnawing in the jawbone then belly: … Read More

  I have been moving in and out of one. Every few hours, I hold my hand up to my face. If I can see the hand, I move towards the window; if I can’t, I stay in bed. Usually, … Read More

  Do you ever feel like an alien? I ask Cliff. He’s arranging my body on the radiation table. Usually I apologize for my muddy boots, but today I’m feeling more and more like my childhood alien abduction dreams were … Read More

  Sea levels rise and we regret our skins, how they blister as much from cold as from heat. As if the point is mediocrity— that soft, shifting middle ground. And we can make this shore lonely enough for the … Read More

  Knee-deep in floodwater, I consider the rats. Not the live ones that fight in the alley each night, each entitled to its chicken bone prize, but the poisoned ones that turn up sometimes, their bodies a banquet for flies … Read More

  —owes a debt to Anne Sexton’s “Just Once” Once a day, I see a flash of white-patched feathers, hear a cable wire mockingbird teach itself a new tune, and understand life is for joy. For the garden. Today, skeletons … Read More

  —after Louis Simpson’s “American Poetry” What this is, must be open-dark, petunias rubbing against one another. What I contain, body knowing the movement of this verse, and the next and the next. Anything can happen if I stop saying … Read More

  Tonight I am tired and will not sleep. There are many dreams I could have had. For instance, as a boy I dreamed about being older, like my brother, who studied computer science. Or like before being “American,” my … Read More

  Voicemail: When you’re young John you try to keep all of your memories in order like organizing all of your small accomplishments into a box John something to fawn over later when you’re older John but they end up … Read More

  —for Mary Anning (1799-1847)   See the fossilist whose slender finger gives direction to our gaze. Note the dog who guarded Anning’s finds for hours while his mistress sought tools or others’ aid. In this, the only likeness made … Read More