Tyrant-Poem
I
We will shake our bodies like animals abandoned in the forest,
and the moon will sing lullabies for the
dead;
the dead who were mine and did...
The women in a familyI.In softest cream cashmere, silk drapingwrists of verbena, vanilla, rose.Bronze chargers under china, layersof scent: rosemary roasting turkey, breadbaking. Today...
For Therapy, I Mix Metaphors
From a frozen wedge of machine-split pine,tossed on this settling fire, one frayed, martyredfiber curls back and away like a...
Captives
Life and time have held us captives— turnedThe moon an imposter in the affairs of the night.
The justice-chirping canaries of yesterday have buriedTheir preaching...
The Pianist
Władysław Szpilman in Warsaw
Music grows on wave crests.When the sails of sound are at half-mast,music breaks up into pebbles.Each soloist is a finger...
Change of Elevation
When we first moved here, birds—red-headed house finches, I believe,a family—twittering high up
in the blue spruce that hangsfrom the neighbor’s yard. You...
ZULU, THE LANCE AND THE LANGUAGE
First, the language refused to enter my ear and be understood.
Instead I chased words around,
words that hovered beyond grasp
and...
Firework ScarsI stepped by the waterfall,memories restless, awakenedfrom induced night slumber,drugged with bottle contentsuntil the pain of tears vanishedUntil the misery of wrought hands,twisted...
The Cost of BeliefEighteen thousand dollars a year,a Jesuit tuition fee.How much Mom believedI wasted now that I was an “atheist.”I tried finding Godeverywhere...
A Heart-Shaped Amulet
Gazing upon the houses and fields of my kingdomI can see my grandmother outside a cottage –around her neck a heart-shaped amulet.Behind...
How Soon Is Now?
Christmassomewhere in Dixie
a young mothernurses her baby
listening to anythingbut The Smiths
while geekstry to figure out
her nameher location
Students shotthe footage
yet thered hat
that...
Fenwick Island
I wish you were here,for you would understandhow the confident starscan move this nightto companionable pity,unwholesome as it is,how the imperishable seamasquerades its...
