poetry

  And a car turns down a street for the final time, its service puttering to an end. A man sits on his bed, puts on his shoes for—what will be— the final time. He will leave his home while … Read More

  The partial veil of the mushroom tears,   reveals its   stem joined with the gilled cap’s frail underside.   Flecked with primordia,   the damp soil is woven through with   rhizomic pale mycelium.   It threads and … Read More

  My late life, father of my delights, you vanished without explanation or was it my fate of which I had been patron and author until parsimonious death cut the thread of my days. No doubt I lent a hand. … Read More

  Your morning soon Your morning song London morning Is dawning New York night Has fallen And when you are waking I’ll be dreaming Of a woman waking In a London morning

  I asked, and the persimmon said, bitter.   I asked, and the bucket said, cast into darkness and rise filled.   I asked, and the dipper said, a dry tongue cannot sing.   I asked, and the furrow said, … Read More

  Hid below the rooflines’ ridge, the sun had raised a sort of alpenglow along the brick facades across the square.   Eyes down, reading, I was unaware, until the ring, forgotten on my hand, began to glow, with rose … Read More

  I still find the matches holding her place in Gay’s Fables, or Hobbes.  The spines have suffered. Those days, she worked at a desk on the landing, slept on a sofa, her glass at hand.  She cooked from expensive … Read More

  Shooting was needed to bring the bird close to hand, but the first things to alter after death and before the specimen’s arranged, paints prepared, are the eyes that shut, feet that clench –natural enough, in death; but not … Read More

  Not his wrist, barcode-wreathed, but the back of his palm he parodied–a tarmac, where a cannula lands like a jet-let. Flight– whatever that meant–-meant catheter- bound. His guttural coughs inflamed the caliber of boredom. He found his IV drip … Read More

  I’ve worked enough winters under this black and white photo of branches and sky on a canvas wide as my stretched out arms. So I lift it from the wall and carry it home on the bus. Every single … Read More

  I saw a ground squirrel with a long naked tail in the wilderness behind the Stop & Shop where the brook rushes into the vortex of an abandoned dryer. I, too, have a wasting disease and at my core, … Read More

  I look up from my grave– I’m not buried, I’m building on the ground floor. I always intended to find something more than the right button for my coat, even as I was slapping mud off and flapping over … Read More