The build, this build a painful narcoleptic my dissonance evokes the somber chi that lives in all of us. Remnant memories of my by gone.…
Frame by frame, this game:fast forward, reverse; zoom in, retreatto the panoramic, commentary astute, shrewd,witty, and—my husband points out—spot onwith what I noted (the week…
Easy sigh me Kiss the very blears of my corners Calm my rustlings Hush my eyes Dawn my furrowed nocturnings Easy sigh me Whisper near the crest of my shadows Pause…
This final forest thins out ahead.I can see through the trees nowas the stand diffusesstretching their shadowsleaving only space – a barrenwithout blueberries perhaps. Moss…
does not want attention when she goes into town to shop. She’s hadenough of people’s taunts, their opinions of her looks, her clothes,her lifestyle. Her…
The trail maker — I want to meet her. She swings me ‘round the boles of the bigger beeches, then along a slope with skinny…
Theirs was a marriage of skin conditions, heartbreak and rashes, wrapped in a perilous geography: concrete for her, and his pocked valleys. My mother preferred…
He spilled things: tiny gold necklaces into shag carpet, wine coolers over a plate of snickerdoodles, letters out the edges of the high school yearbook.…
descending down the lonely dark hill snow pouring down from the darkness down in cones cast from the yellow street lights driving carefully down route…
How quickly it transits, an arc of ice tightening from west to east. A rock thrown into black water shivers into the deep, empty belly,…
outside her window, spiderweb branches crawlacross a darkening sky — the cold, wet, whitemakes faces in the glass — the light bulbsemit their white light…
This year, she rememberseveryone—daughter, daughter-in-law,son-in-law, grandchildren—but early,March Hallmarks arriving beforeSeptember’s almost-autumn,age a wish we’d rather wait onbut still welcome with open mail slotswhen her stamped…
Today, the dentist pulledthe last of yournatural teeth andreplaced them withfalse ones. Tomorrow, you will turn eighty-three. I wonder howmuch of usis left — really still…
In three seconds, she/I will no longer remember the inconsistency of this moment, or the mundane thrill on your/our breath. An umbrella, which she/I/we thought…
I harbored the spirit of unforgiveness
she wasn’t the unruly houseguest
everyone supposes
she didn’t destroy furniture
or have people over for orgies
mostly she sat silently
I am the full moon
rich with daughters.
Time spent
reading bedtime stories
and drying tears over
spilled milk and bruised knees.
I am trying to quit thinking of simple human decency as a form of heroism, both in my poems and in the world. …
The room was too quiet, so I left. I took my nervous feet to poundthe dark curl of island parting the river,all drizzling dark and…
Combine water and sugar in a bottle, and place a string inside.Crystals will begin to consume the string,a physical reaction to something sweet.A catalyst in…
This bleak suburb of Chicagothis Best Western hotel this December, freezing rainthese grey scraps of snow these apartments across the waythose small prisons of the…
Yellow beam from my flash and I tell myself something’s not right – as it runs ahead of me across the foyer floor to the kitchen linoleum, plush carpet…
In the mouth& the jawsback-handed slamby the coroner-manbecause of the rigorbecause he was sickof the shelling assemblyall gone to this:My buddy beneath the sheet,Father Priestseminary…
the worst part
is not seeing.
how blood pools post-op
behind the retina…
I. Uncle Skeleton bleached bronze by the desert
rattles up my driveway looking for solace,
someone who might understand…
the cemetery is a grand garden
to walk in she says
all the flowers arranged then changed
stories told by names…
My begging him to seek help—a psychiatrist, medication—is the proof of my cahootswith the omnipotent cabalhacking him, following him,seizing every shot to uncloakan interminable presencein…
The hush of darkness broken. Soft edging breathes gently through the horizon, heaving. Reaching slowly to embrace the Earth with its tendrils. Young greens wake…
How do you know it’s done? I admit the children were wreckedbut the sad man gave me reasons to remain— the sex was sex, his…
He’s been in a woman’s kitchen;he knows the art of locatinga drinking glass, the good corkscrew. He can rinse the bubblesfrom a long-necked twist-top,leave it…
The nasal, echoing sound of my breathBouncing through the acoustics of my headSteady, rhythmically blended with the beats of my heartElevating, escalating, matching my stride…
Last night I spread mouthwash over my face
instead of toner.
Last week I tried to open the car
with my cell phone.
I lost the word wash…
They will have unstitched the flowers from your collar, edited my name toward a sad misspelling. We won’t recognize each other nor the rooms in…
Some, in their hula hoop circus gear and spandex pirate stripes, bump to late-night techno spinning at Rouge Cat’s Euro trash lounge or grind to…
Our mothers proclaimed that nothing good ever happens after midnight, as if having us in bed by the time the two clock hands clasped at…
I’m cleaning out my cupboards and polishing my vocal chords. I’ve taken the carpets out from under my feet, shaking them free of stray stones…
There’s enough moss to go around is what I say to myself. When I lived on the East coast moss said only North, but here…
The half-dead baby crow rescued and released came back to me in a dream. He was six feet tall, sleek feathered, shining blue. He wanted…
When you were pulled from the surgical slit in my stomach, each of my sixteen years cried out. Cradled by my arms and the eyes…
It’s a renegade blessing, a luckless charm, an impossible command, a petition with one signature, a spangled net of wishes thrown over the precious other,…
I know it’s true because it happened to me as I stood alone in the mourning moonlight, after they planted my love in the ground…