Flunking the Bechtel test,she is talking, again, about her husband.Who, when awake, seemspreoccupied by the heightof the grass in his lawn.Or baseball.My neighbor wonders aloud ifAOC is going to ruin this countrybefore or after she becomesthe first woman president.She’s a …
“Parts is parts,”one chicken killer says to the other,an inside jokeand his face folds up in a smile.These guys are never allowedto work the counterin their slimy apronsand unspeakable boots.One sees me and waves a drumstick,it’s still got a foot …
The sky is an ashy, gray-edged heather rug of purpleTasseled with a silver-white moon,Curled in the shape of a sleeping cat,Or a woman at a window seat,Watching the world go by,A pregnant belly of sky before her,Time and space ballooningIn …
the day my sister was born,my grandmother helped me put on my socks.they were the kind I didn’t particularly like,with lace collars at the scruffaround my ankles, they scratched.I was preparing to be introducedto someone who’d impactmy existence immeasurably, ineffably. …
Tatters of dreamflare outthen quietin periphery of morning. Statements of iron-tongueddesire and baleful gallopfade to pure drops of oxygen awake in rectangular darkunaware of the windowor yard outside window just self-containedundefinedposition I pose to bring house backsitting, head-cockingsuburban ac lullaby …
I find myself staringin a lens, left eye squeezed,right fixated on findingAuriga among the asteroids. I see my father eleven yearsearlier, paralyzingly brightunder hospital lightsdespite developing pneumonia. Locating constellationsis arduous. I imaginethe stars huddledas they attempt to survivein space, hidingfrom …
my memory begins to meltthe more my thoughts collect onmy father. pieces of the past go missingand my mind makes a new storyof the moments once memorized. when I was younger we used tobuild igloos together, creatingcircular chunks of ice …
The upstairs neighbors (newlyweds; basset houndnamed Elvis) laughed saying they could hear me singalong with U2’s Achtung, Baby! I harmonized with Bono, pretended I was singing lead. All I heard of them wasfootfall—they padded barefoot on the hardwood floors,played fetch with the …
She stripped off my shirt. Slipped freeof hers. Pressed breasts to breasts, heartbeatto heart. Te quiero, she declared, siempre.I wear this promise of permanencelike a tattoo whose ink …
I try to put it in chronological order, starting with the day I was diagnosed: startling forsythia, yellow ribbons of wishful thinking knotted at the branches’ tips— footprints of whomever put them there. Evensong of peepers, composing a lifetime (I …
Is it just one accident strung to another, body flung from courtsideledge, knees shredded. Body half butterfly three quarters gravel.Flipped downhill because front braked, body tumbled like dominos.Chin ricocheted off the board when the instructor said wait, too lateabove deep-end …
Miles made no difference to the war that ended before I was born & went on smoldering, becoming the air. On a Munich corner my songs were thin scarves, German along my skin sounded like tattoos so I fled the …