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 […]
The Glass Dog
after Giorgio de Chirico’s I Shall Be There – The Glass Dog I shall be there baring the paunch of my stomach bearing my heart in an open box as you, cool as loam in the garden last night lie beside me on the grass not yet wet with dew. a constellation is a group […]
Troika
aching feet are forgotten once I sit on a red banquette. we’ve gone to Russia by way of the MTA. my mother would tell me to cross my ankles, not my legs. here is the upper class, for ten American dollars. it buys about three cups of tea. “Earl Grey, orange, and mandarin,” with a […]
Leap Day
balmy air sneaks its way through the gaps in the cable-knit, in this finicky colony housing confused birds and the carnage of melting snow. people sharing happinesses, incredulous – it’s sixty in the shade. the ground is still hard and we’re sitting under trees. californians in parkas, vermonters in shorts. february twenty-ninth strolls by: a […]
Pantoums for 3 a.m.
(for Siv) Fall Keeping shadows at arm’s length while the streetlights still flicker is the only way I know that I understand the dark. While the streetlights still flicker I come to realize that I understand the dark – we have not kissed since morning. I come to realize the soft Earth’s quietude. We have […]