PEONY BUD a sphere as roundas earth     multifoliate— petals foldedinto possibilities ovate leaves the backdropwaxy with the future— jade pigment—the outlines capture impatiencelike waiting rain the main event—the pink of...

My Mother Sizes Me You come to me shaking, cradling tissuein your palm so carefully that I didn’t recognizeyour softness, open to me for once....

Neon Reverie The suit wore him—too white, too new.  A cigar flared; smoke curled in balcony air.  Penthouse whispers steeped in carat gold;his voice like...

Taffy My heart is salt water taffy. Salty, sweet, sticky. Comes in a colorful box often found in the bargain bin of a gift soft...

Sunday Best he blows dandelions for his babies in the corner store parking lotin their Sunday best, following this morning's sermontheir wishes scatter across the...

God Was Hiding Faith cannot be held as an old grey handNor as a breath to put voice to prayerIn faith I rendered a final...

Quarry The sun looks higher here by the quarry Daylight savings a forgotten grumblefor the sleep-deprived days of yestermonth. The time is truly 6:49, but soon thebiddies...

Beat An amniotic lake within meand you, floating then the deafening silence,static nothingness where I expected sound. For a week I am a shipwrecknot split open on rocky...

Late in the Game We sleep peacefully,side-by-side,except, by chance,when she or I turn outward, to the edgeof our plush and well-shaped bed. Never inward, it would...

I Cannot Be Your Quiet All my years of blustery men and mewishing they’d stop whistling, cutting me off,tightening the tessitura of my voice.I never...