poetry

  Mera nam kya hai. Mein kidhar se aayee hoon. The wanderers wander in Urdu and the kings die in English. Everyone has lost the first song. The Portuguese came singing from Sagres. They brought the color of gold and … Read More

  I know, you believe in nothing, so, when you   step off the fire escape, fall into nothing, never   bloody the courtyard’s snowdrifts. Nobody   screams, rushes down to slick dress red. But,   as of today, I’m … Read More

    Rabbits are made of watching, stillness, pulse-pound & leap. String a parade of heartbeats in the air & a rabbit will form around them. Teeth exist that can open you bloody so the universe invented rabbits, who invented … Read More

  Charleston, SC   The marsh flickers in the beading of bridal lace, a train that swallows the dock as she promises tidal fidelity in the shadow of pruned oak.   This land pristine for annual bushels of vows, scrubbed … Read More

  I An old man wipes his glasses with a handkerchief with no corners. He remembers in circles. He cries in circles.   II A day laborer stands on a pile of red bricks. He adds another brick in his … Read More

              Dawn.  Waiting for you at the café among the whitewashed posadas.  Shadows stir with dim awakenings.                                     … Read More

  A regulated eye, calm and gray, that let us see in deep as a mother’s patient, unblinking gaze,   we peered at the unhurried overalls of mild Mr. Greenjeans who carried plants like mittens, or kittens   into and … Read More

  The clouds aren’t clouds anymore, they’re whatever they want to be, unfocused drifters, portents of change. A hundred people are here, a hundred different courses happening, each person’s version of the world a tricky thing, mine often the beam … Read More

  I dream hate. I dream fear. I barely remember my dreams but through   the scrape of a night, I see the world is at my glass. No storms or blizzards   could have prepared me for this hate, … Read More

  the water all light and motion wedge of shimmer stripes of wind ripples edging tenderly to dulse and Irish moss and rocks smooth as the backs of whales   there is weight to the morning fog, scent of fire … Read More

  of steel-toed boots and fixed-gear bicycles, O country of subwoofers and subterranean shelters,   of men on green fields in armor, of men on sand in skin, of skin on skin, and nail polish named better than our children— … Read More

  All summer, we feared to look at her, our bovine Tiresias. Marked by pinkeye, with crystal ball eyes she sniffed her way   across pastures thinned by drought. My father saw her every day, as he filled the water … Read More