Another Thing Coming
the train in my mindfinally stops beforeI get off and wend the way through thisgarden of you turningthe fan off in the night. returning to myself asan uninvited guest, Ifind lessons and shelter, approaching the endlesssong of what I’ve chosento share in the dark. at last, naming the fearof longing, please say you won’t turn […]
Gratitude
I want to tell you about the cereal I ate or pigeon footprints in wet cement, but scarcity warrants demand and these heady grass days have been hard to come by. I wonder if all fools are too foolish to rush too unlucky to run or to trust their feet but it’s nice to see […]
Coyote
no pilgrimage quite as long as the four country miles, side-to-side in disconnected brooklyn, walking east to go west yet again we accidentally tango both prepared to lead the Passion play in the moonlight—we’ve plumb forgot how to speak English, or any language mouths open to say nothing, save for yes, please, breathing
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
what a moment it is to haveshelved the bottle just as I’velearned a new game of cards.hands keep busy as birdsoutside run their errandsback and forth from the treesto feed. Dad and I play cribbage,which I teach, with skillsonly days ahead of his.for months he’s pocketeda dull desire to get a dogbut tells me, offhand, […]
Preposition in 6/4
Scheherazade, night so longwith the story I tell myselfto help winter pass, could be five ormidnight save for the moonlow over the Navy Yardsinging its time of day. driven over the bridge,I never know which way to look.born yet motherless,spit out of reverie by the off rampand City Hall, the angels in blackcrossing the street. […]
Wisteria, Brooklyn
“a labyrinth is not a maze, in which confusion is the aim.”¹ the path was always inevitable, never quite chosen. the unavoidable moon reveals blood in my mouth, the Pleiades on my chest, bobby pins in my bed. the doctor recommends that I change my sheets and strawberry ice cream to dull the taste. we […]
Object Permanence
in spring we come across a peeling house and fill it with pots and pans. sometimes I make noise with a wooden spoon. you fix shingles and leaks, tinker, turn knobs, use a wrench, and I leave smooth stones in your pockets. in theory: majestic, domestic, but whose feet will start to itch? who will […]
How It Is Broken
my hands still smelling of garlic, I leave early, walking uncertain on my own two feet I imagine birds picking at the suet somewhere else, on a street with just houses, no bodegas to buy from, no way for you to punch me in the mouth with whiskey ears poking out of our matching […]
Ripening
(after 8-bitfiction) you sink your sensible feet in the dirt while we talk about the heat presuming the boundaries of the court are drawn there like sowed beds, the summer being safe ground. a comfortable distance to dance from, to charm in words. I thought about you when I felt my bruise, my tan, getting […]
Plum Island
after Andrew Wyeth‘s Squall the piping plovers hopped along the time I went birding, cold and wet dispositions fret, slickered yellow hiding behind dunes pock-marked by rain, canvas tote bags dampened, ferried across the bay to observe the avian world. mid-june we’d rather slather in sunscreen and bake in the heat but instead we steep in […]