poetry

  almost green / not quite purple / pissed-off grey   looks ripe / remember   this early a.m. / the billiard games with a few Millenials   / voiced to them “chrono-   logical age is bullshit” / but … Read More

  oh no! / not this questioning   acquaintance again / why unwed / why no children /   in front of hers you accuse   her of being a terrorist / her bafflement / yes you walk   away … Read More

  Today, the sky was completely ordinary. Just a few white clouds dispersed at random. Then,  in between, nothing but the dull blue of late afternoon. And I wanted to tell you, “Look, it’s a miracle. See that squirrel. It’s … Read More

  No moon. Not even a lamb to leap the gates. No shepherd with his staff curled at the top. Thy rod and thy staff no comfort. The sheep all sleeping in the fields of Cavan. The great-grand folks asleep … Read More

  I’m a maid in this hotel, but in my country, like most women, I helped prepare the dead for burial, and I know bodies have their own light that they exhaust in living. Sometimes I think I can see … Read More

  What I remember best is the bread. A whole loaf of unsliced wheat so the pastor could tear it up   in chunks to offer to you. If you were lucky he ripped a bigger piece and when you … Read More

                “When this is over I will go home and sleep forever”               —Ammar Al-Selmo   We pray for peace as our city turns to salt       … Read More

  Everything surprises me: that she called for me, that I am here.   What we failed at in life is done. Now she lets me grab her shoulder,   hold her body while she shrieks and climbs out.

  The hot summer long —we loaded truck beds with   watermelons, our rough hands soothed by   the cool green rivers in their skins,   then stood guard, armed with bamboo poles,   as the cargo, made its way … Read More

  Fear made us little children: If they catch you, they’ll cut off your nose and ears. If you’re a girl, they’ll rape you. So out of the cave’s bombed mouth, I crawled to the feet of a huge American, … Read More

                       mistranslation after Rilke   When song arrived like an ungainly bird, the light inert, the light wide open shut, the rats brought forth their milky music before returning to the … Read More

                       mistranslation after Rilke   So, the king of the chipped glass departed, and all of his overgrown trinkets— the hart, the rocks, the bush tits— the place was full of … Read More