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...
FALLSTREETLIGHT SWITCH
The sodium-vapor streetlightswith fresnel lenses like lidded eyeshave been replacedwith horseshoe-like arcs of LED lights.As the morning stays dark longerand evening comes on...
Cloth & Sun
Chaos greets me at the door—
broken things swirl,
dust motes through worn curtains,
a breath before the next bruise.
You coil like an old cobra,
fangs...
