poetry

  Along the coast, we lit tobacco fields. We followed a pack of bulldogs. Our private moments, of praying for each other’s bodies, were sought behind billowing tapestries. A barge approached us overflowing with sleepers who held contracts. We took … Read More

  I cannot understand why she cannot understand why the weight of her body intrudes, and then   Wait, I was saying, what was, right, that, the load of her weight, but not just that, more the fact of her … Read More

  I’ve got the portable radio tuned to the news, and they’re singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” its clotted lyrics sounding as though each singer in the choir made up different words until they get to “Glory! Glory! Halleluja!” … Read More

  You haven’t spoken to your friends in years. You’ve heard of their occupations. You’ve seen   their family photos. You want to wake up in a salt mine with a tarp over your head. You want to catch up … Read More

  There is no short supply of quiet in London And all the darkness one could ever need Is there around the fair at Christmastime And nearly snuffs it out. I always see The fair, yet miss it, always, riding … Read More

  The downy woodpecker’s pointed knocking persistent as on a grandparent’s back door is nothing like a hammer drill, head slamming forward and on snapping impact retracting a split moment before slamming forth again to wood; then, cocked muzzle aside, … Read More

  Less skin than wrapper, less concrete than gauze, the ground crumbles—floats away, cools, gray-brown dust tornados, magnetic, lost in tides. What does it matter? Broken ground folds into plains and craters, fields mark the path of violence. Scars gather … Read More

  A gusty wind blows snow from the east, from the north then back from the east. The snow is confused, he says, (beat) sometimes we are too. Where better to look for the self than in that snow, wind’s … Read More

1964   They found someone who knew someone, in Brooklyn where it would be done. They knew she wasn’t far along. He gave her cash. She went by train while he stayed home with 1-6. The cots and cribs were … Read More

  In the temporary trailer park made permanent, we marry, look for work, give birth. We fix up trucks or let them rust for months, propped up on blocks in the punishing dust. There’s little joy and nothing grows except … Read More

  Old cart slumped over its wheels, a cat’s cradle of cobwebs in what was the manger—and a shanty town of pick-up-stick cages, each containing a frantic thrush. We have disturbed them, coming in. Raymond knows each bird by its … Read More

  A steer hung from its hocks, stream of plasma under my boots, water-thinned. The butcher works rhythmically. Hands pale and firm. The steer is a hulking, swiveling shadow. The butcher opens it slowly. There are those who see colors … Read More