poetry

  Before dawn stretched her rosy-fingers onto earth, before I threw a stone into the eye- socket of a storm & it broke like a cloud of wasps gone haywire: she, like an oil   painting sprawled in the silence … Read More

  I am home with the toilet paper and the vodka and the too-pulpy martini. A glowless fuckery, I am not what Bop wanted me to be. All that Sun-In wasted on me. Son, I know Hulk holds the same … Read More

  At three        you have come to love Lizzo and finally     my legacy is taking root   At night    when the moon makes a sailboat of us     all, all   our decks starlit and scarred ++I want to help you      feel … Read More

  The filmy shapes that haunt the dusk. ++++++—Tennyson, In Memoriam   Whatever fruit is on hand, mash with wine or beer in a slurry, add a couple cups of sugar, white or brown, a shot of rum, dollop of … Read More

  SEATTLE WOMAN, 42, DIES IN CAR WRECK, BAKERSFIELD, CA FEB. 18, 1962 +++++++—News Headline   Even after all these years, almost 60 or so, or more, it feels like more, and the sea, it feels like it must be … Read More

  I want something like a ship, but not a ship, a way to cross the underlying expanse that isn’t water, but feels like water,   illegible traces of microplastics, unconscious, the amphibious space that laps at immediate perception. I … Read More

  My house is not a house of small beautiful things and nothing is ever clean here. A pucker in the doorframe indicates the upper floor will soon fall to the garden.   I may tire of building my house … Read More

  Let my spider plant shrivel in a swim of photons. I found the perfect word and backspaced it out of memory. I slept until everyone slept, then woke to admit the dark dog sniffing at my door. I taught … Read More

  Even as telephones buzz and silver voices sing of cash flow strategies, I slump in a shadowed corner by the photocopier and do not make a sound, not a murmur when my earth runs dry and not a peep … Read More

  willow, sallow, blackthorn thought is made in the mouth   quaking aspen, silver birch pulse is mouth in the wrist   cedar, alder, slippery elm wrist is grief in the making   camphor, blue ash, blister fir myth is … Read More

  I welcome emptiness. It is a good start. An empty vessel holds no dynamite. An empty   mind plans no atrocities. Hold my hand and share how it feels, to plan   your own exit. I respect every part … Read More

  in memory of Sam Seskin   All I know is: at this moment, a young scholar solves   a century-old problem. A group of six climbs Everest, a group of twelve   is rescued from a hurricane. The same … Read More