poetry

  Some black words, black as good soil, blacker than bull calves blocking the road where trucks idle, blacker than the oil belly of a thunderhead, unload wine-black the scouring rain, and deluge is the answer. Some words are coup … Read More

  That’s what Jamie called them, when we met in prison and he spoke of love: “There was this great big woman,” he said— “big heart, trouble getting around, so I helped her, we went to all the homeless camps … Read More

  Now on this first warm day I wake alone. Leafy on my bed of sunlit sheets thinking of green and leaves like hands on my body. Your hands. The earth pokes up its little signals everywhere: the snowdrops and … Read More

  George Burns, at 99, puffing on his cigar, confided to us That his doctor had warned him to stop smoking—then noted That his doctor had died many years ago. Probably Not a bad doctor. For many years, I had … Read More

  the snow made a cave the snow made a cave erupt corrupt it opened before us      we tunneled through it closed behind us      no way out exit ramps died in secreting darkness cars sat backwards  … Read More

  The year that she was three, my daughter was a fox for Halloween— orange felt hood with ears, a tail stitched to her back, and painted-on whiskers— the only girl in the preschool parade not dressed as a princess. … Read More

  I say I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but of course I do. Like buttercups in a meadow, I think: paralyzed; because of course I am stuck in myself. Ten thousand words on the tip of my tongue, … Read More

  From the house barely, nakedly, burningly driven into pasture beyond— bad daughter thrown across acres without even her mother’s shawls and pillows. Where to sleep where hopping things won’t hop and nest in her hair—why thrown out, why not … Read More

  My corner. My alma mater. Your street. This endangered fish. Even when we are patronizing we say Sure, honey like of course poetry matters. Polo, quilting, Côtes du Rhône. Civility Matters. But not this! This bridge too far, where … Read More

  Ice Glen, a side trip on our trip to see old friends. Our plan—a hike, and then there was the thought of Hawthorne and Melville, a century before, and their friends, sitting on boulders singing, drinking, and “telling tales,” … Read More

  This is how heaven was invented. You know how you can’t remember where you were before you were here? It’s like that. How you point to a picture and say, that was me when I was a shark, or … Read More

  She was here, no she was really here. She had taken her shoes off, sat down at the foot of your bed, hand on your peace-white hand, her picnic basket and sleeveless blouse; and it was the seashore, she … Read More