FACE
My face distorts and dances
in the rippling water.
And a goldfish floats through my nose.
SCRAWNY KID
Scrawny kid.
Lean against your crumbling shack,
And try to paint with...
The Birds Busiest Before DawnNorth Carolina, January 7, 2021
America, can you still hear us? Caged, mournful,what songs echo empty streets after all ballotshave been...
Settled in the Gray
Dust weighs down the roomgiving an unfocused appearance, yetsomehow adding emphasisto the few items that remain:the soft table in front of...
Losing Sight
You were the first person
I reached towards,
A single, shaking arm
Plunged into the thick
Fog of fresh grief.
You pulled me through
The first awful snow,
The first...
Morning Class in Washington, D.C.
A sparrow collides, fallsglass to concrete
Beak opens, body spasms.
A student looks:me, bird, back.
She wants instructions.
Touch the birdto do what?
Stun it...
Feathers in a Folktale
The rabbi told the gossipto rip open a pillowand release the feathersto the wind.
“Now bring them back,”the rabbi ordered.“Every single one.”
Scattered...
The Ballad of Alice Hortense
Some sweet morningI can’t say whenThe sun’s gonna melt my days awayAnd I’ll flow beside the knowing riverTill the rushing...
Positive Vision Quest
Dig your many trenches of attrition where you must.The inside job comes right from the gutand nowhere else.
Happiness is when what you...
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...
Loop
Goddamn those whippoorwills, we wanted
to shoot them, our history teacher said.
-
He’d lived in the woodsiest neck of our district
since childhood. Of course we’d heard them
-
too: In...
