He could be like a murder victim on his side, the way he sleeps. The arms flailing, the legs cocked weird. Like a deer on the side of the highway. The dead are like that, caught in a sudden peace…. Read More ›
poetry
A roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour
It is a sleepy Sunday with the cat in the window, the clock ticking and the rain. Me smacking my lips, tonguing my teeth as a lion might a sinew. House cats are no different than their counterparts in the… Read More ›
Physical education
In grade school PE we were forced to do chin-ups in front of the rest of the class and some boys could barely do one, and were laughed at and teased, called pussies and worse. But there were others, quiet… Read More ›
The passing through
Poem you come out unformed as me, with no bones you plop onto the ground eyeless and bare, hardly alive. And what is form, but a language others assign to us for filing purposes? And what are we beyond our… Read More ›
Sisyphus in the underworld of our kitchen
It’s true, the microwave is sticky. Sticky on the insides, sticky when the door opens. And there’s hair on the kitchen cupboards, hair adhered to grease. Animal hair, but it doesn’t belong there. And mold on the insides of the… Read More ›
What it takes to look like a poet
There is nothing ordinary or light about you. You don’t look into the camera, you look down or sideways. You do that because the weight is too much for anyone to bear, the weight of your gaze. You know that,… Read More ›
Song for Billy Collins
All night while we sleep in the dark of the kitchen by the sink the coffee tumbler stands on its head upside down like a yoga pose in the drying rack beside the Belgian beer glass, the salad spinner, the… Read More ›
Off the coast of Connemara
We did not know it then, we drove to the end of the world on a nameless peninsula, a spit off the edge of Ireland, some cheap car we rented in Dublin, a stick, we drove all day across that… Read More ›
Song for reopening
And after so long, a whole season of seasons spent indoors, it sounds like the whole world is reawakening.
The new Walt Whitman smartphone
It fits in your palm like a lotus blossom, like a butterfly.
