We all need a line against which to measure our wildness. The park is cut back along the path. I align my spine with the heavy bench, send my legs out around your waist as the sun heats a halo through your long black hair. Today I can understand how the scientists misjudged the universe’s color for turquoise when really … Read More
Dear Raspberry,
When I returned Noe to the earth and she sent her staccato of sweetness up into the unending sky, I was not yearning for more than I was given. Then the blueberries got to chattering all along the lattice of the deck and you rose from your empty decade, your margin of darkness to reach a bracken arm in. Volunteer … Read More
The first law of thermodynamics
My son begins to notice other kids have one home with two parents in it. We are driving and he wants to know why Daddy can’t live with us. The oil tanker is all mirror. It returns us stretched wide to ourselves. I never wanted to be moving forward in all directions at once, but here we are, inverted, the … Read More
Dear Reed Canyon,
I circle you as time circles history first with one dog, then two, then one. We accept each other’s changes. The salmon flash through, fighting for their lives. The nutria are trapped with apples and sent away. Your waters rush and pool, rush and pool. By the stepped rocks, Henry loved to drop his ball then retrieve it where it … Read More
I want my eggs
I want my eggs soft and in between destinies the yolk undecided the white a nimbus of coagulated light haloing its small yellow sun as I have lived trained to the perimeter of what is most alive in me, accomplice to and bearer of its diminishing light.
Dear Luna,
I met your father today and held your painted face in my hands. Only a poet can give us our own grief in terms we can understand. As breath fills us briefly before leaving, that windswept cliff could not keep me from this slender spine of his book split between my reading hands. Your life burns through mine in metaphor, … Read More
Dear God,
I thought forgiveness was a choice like wearing the black shoes with the grey tights, face arranged for the mirror. I thought I could make a bouquet of my thoughts, thirst clipped to the small bowl of understanding. Politely, I swallowed my life as if I were smuggling myself in until rage burned my bones clean. Blood the story passed … Read More
Dear Divorce,
Your branding iron hovers over me as if there were only one way to give up hope. The lawyer has advised me who owes what. How we can expect to be judged. There are precedents for everything in the unwinding of yours from mine. I know there have been endless sons shuttled from half-home to half-home that won’t add up … Read More
Thirst
We understand least what we hold closest. Cup contains, water resists. Thirst: a lineage of cups with no trust in the future. What wakes you up in the night mouth empty, sheets blank might be the faucet’s dumb neck arched with a brassy assurance that you have not yet learned to tap.
Dear Li-Young Lee,
My favorite day is Saturday. My favorite color is dog tongue and empty bowl. My favorite color is “happy,” the way my son says it, clutching his small ambulance. My favorite day is Thursday. Thumb of circumstance. My favorite window hinges on the distance of open and closed, my heart its trapped glass blushing a sunset-streaked descent. My favorite dream … Read More
- Page 1 of 2
- 1
- 2