The women put up peaches each summer because trees give up their gold all at once. It’s hard to save something for later— to crush…
A few people said you looked like your father, but you weren’t sure whether they meant it or were simply seeking something to say to…
Picture this summer scene…He wakes up so hungover his headache hurts him in the knees, campervan crooked-parked across three spots in the empty beach parking,…
Dark reflections of pastel on gray paper curve into themselves a girl, her eyes night-lit, her hair catching faded sun turning the light…
No woodpeckers pulping suet this winter, no juncos or finches throbbing at the sunflower feeder. Bad to find the woods depleted, the river sullen under…
Square old houses brace themselves against the raw intelligence that slowly devolves as history. We’ve never inhabited such rooms, being of sturdy peasant stock and…
Perhaps I was too busy teaching school as they buzzed about the latest action-packed movie, the trendy new restaurant, the neighborhood going up across town.…
At heart, perhaps, I’m pig-like, a javelina with beastie lips and a barbecue belly. I’ve grown tired of speeches, yellow rumped warblers dreaming of dachas…
He holds in his hand a photo of me with a giant lollipop—half-sucked, colors relocated from the candy to my little mouth and he tells…
I wanted to be tossed in your salt water where the blue edges toward green and a siren pulls everyone’s hair down past their shoulders.…
6th grade: I woke up, found my nipples, they were no longer pink. They were brown suntanned, dry skin, not soft like the rest of my body.…
We were too busy enjoying the dregs of our summer, the last August of adolescence, to pay much mind to the cloaked figure in the…
That morning, I buried a baby bird. She was small and brown as any bird who lived a few days in a box and died.…
a not admitting of the Wound Until it grew so wide that all my Life had Entered it ~Emily Dickinson Unzip me from the inside,…
My friends were fist fights we broke each other down. To withstand what was ahead We ate and spat prophecies misinterpreted as code-switching cyphered with streetlight hymns…
Margaret was the smartest girl in the class because her lunch bread was stale and her windows were dirty. She spent most afternoons hiding from the streaks…
today is father’s day says every billboard in the city the mugs are on sale the surcharge on the brunch is exorbitant and the pub beers…
Someone labored over this swatch of grass, removing sod with hoe then shovel, creating too-perfect a rectangle, severe straight lines with the crisp, stark angles…
Imagine a large herd of zebras grazing on grassy green pasturesFrom the scrub, a Lion sprints towards the optical illusion of black and white stripesInstincts…
She adored rhododendrons & the festivaldedicated to them.Imagine each lung is a sponge said the pulmonologistbearing the shiny frown of his profession. She smoked those…
Built by big, broken, and blistered Negro handsto serve the citizens of South Bend.They named me Public Natatorium,the largest indoor swimming pool in Indiana.I could…
He looked troubled as the requestcame over the intercom.Blind and deaf, he didn’t hearthe flight attendant or see the girlwho pressed the call buttonand said…
1. Exhausted sheep have left the room.Too many nights fence-jumping beneathtoo many pounds of wool, they headfor pastures greener and compassionate. 2. A poem that…
Who hasn’t wanted to do that?He probably had the key,felt the familiar give of the tumblers. He knew the house wasn’t his,but wasn’t it? He…
I wanted to walk down the aisle& see your beaming facethrough my lacy veil but my car was slammedinto the river; the veilthat now covers…
Vaseline, to get the botflyout of his forehead again.He’s had to do it three times; they creepthrough the sticky film to breathe. Do it, the…
For putting the coffee cone back in the cupboardwith its used wet grounds, I forgive youas I forgive you all your lapsed cleaning, the tubscrubbed,…
Little bird,your heart beats fastagainst the glassof the closed windowinside my porch.Hold still.My warm handswrap around you.I turn,take one step, two.In the open doorway,I slowly…
Only when sweat spatters the thin blonde tips, can I spot it— …
It used to be the afterthoughtat the end of a letterthat final smirk of wit, that wistfultraveler meandering late to the fair. That was when…
Like the last dayI would see you. Smiling— Wheels skidding on iceas I push you from parking lot to in-patient. Your handsuddenly becomes a child’s…
I dance the Tennessee Waltzwith Charlie,Old Charlie Blue Eyesin his thick tan sneakers.I hold him under the armsas we waltz, stiffly,two paces from his wheelchair.His…
I wrote them on adding-machine paper with ballpoint pen. I was always at it.Even before the reply to the last had comeI was crafting the…
That frigid Saturday midnightmy mother’s car rolledout of the garageafter me because I failedto park four wheelson the plane of cementthen compounded my errorby leaving…
I sympathizewith the dining room table.The one that’s too big for the space it occupies.You have always taken care of itbecause you use it everyday,but…
—there was no release no parade …
In early May, beneath the stars,the air is humming as the young, male tree frogstrill their love songs into the darkness—long, shuddering sighs of desire,one beginning…
the rumble of her feline songslips between my thumbsthis love like the windcatches me unawarelike moonbeams on midnight’s lakesoundlessas moth wings about the lantern’s bright beam and I’m…
Out there beside the crabapple’s shade,the tyranny of balls, bats, and yellshaunted me somewhat less than if I was closer.I heard a truck grumble down…
I can’t diveinto the gold of flowerswithout hearingthe petalshit the earth. It’s autumn, and I’m learning to processthe radial treesin their decay,the final eggof the northern…