Ricochet
Where one should hear the echo of a duck’s call there is only glazed stillness, the word lake so close to lacquer, lack. Stood at the scum-rimmed edge I said nothing, a friend said listen, but I only heard … Read More
XI. In Navajo creation stories, the Coyote convinces the water monster to inhale him. Our neighbor is surprised to learn that Eric, reared Jewish, identifies as Buddhist, is surprised to learn that I’m not Jewish. By July, … Read More
Unless while it’s growing you feed it strips of pork fat crushed with orange rinds & ginger. Unless you turn the soil with your bare hands & blacken your nails with its roots. Unless you cook it … Read More
The Golden Age Then the animals could talk in words. The sparrow to the farmer sang and the farmer sang along, the pine and the laurel counseled the honey in its tomb to sing a tune, and the bees … Read More
The old oak in the creek’s bend stands blotted black with songbirds— stripped branches’ lateral buds breaking early-sunset sky— we sounded like them, you and I, when you screeched in the numb night and you ate from my body. … Read More
give me any lyre-like thing I’m on my knees what I’m on my knees * the swamp I move through careful your own drowning is at hand * presume breath & you will always be disappointed presume death & … Read More
A scarlet breeze buoyed him next to us, his white feather hair a boy’s, giddy and bright for this, what he called, “the immaculate air.” It never crossed my mind the wind could be fostered down to such a … Read More
Let me learn to love this land, the lay of the highways, the maze of crooked one-ways cobbled together in colonial haste. Give me a place to linger, to wait for sirens to drown in distance, for wind to … Read More
When I return to the dog, the first thing I see is the teeth. And then the dog disappears. But the teeth remain. Bared. Bereft of dog. The bared teeth. They open wide as if to seize upon the … Read More
Nights Daddy didn’t come, our mother turned down the roast and set out crayons. My sister peeled the rind from a color called flesh. I chose periwinkle like his Air Force ring. Mother stood at the window and blew … Read More
Returning home from work, I found myself following a garbage truck as it lumbered south through rush hour traffic, as it maneuvered its rusty armed or elbowed front loader, leaked from the hopper, weaved the threat of its wobbling … Read More
The way a man meets his death will be determined by his character. —Benito Mussolini ‘Rest in peace’ has its ironies, and, in the case of Mussolini, a long and winding road that intersects with that of Domenico Leccisi, … Read More