Poetry |
“The Boys, Waiting (Petaled Gloaming)”
“He was a queer anarchist / with a mouth on him so when hassled / by a cop for riding his bike / on the sidewalk he jumped off, bike chain / clutched in his scabbed fists.”
Poetry |
“During elementary school, I was pulled out of class”
“A decade and a half later, / only my laptop kept time during jail visits. // Here in Arizona, in a house with no clocks, / only overpriced electronics / signal the hour.”
Poetry |
“Given” & “After Some Words Scrawled on a Bathroom Stall”
“I go by a name not mine but given to me / among mountains by Italian hosts impatient / with my own, its clash of consonant // coming to bear like sandpaper upon / the tongue.”
Poetry |
“A Moose Breathes Onto My Palm”
“In the painting, a rabbit / is riding a moose] / or perhaps a reindeer. I’ve never been good / at identifying large mammals …”
Poetry |
“Refuge”
“My mother painted a colorful jungle / on the upstairs balcony with a deer, bear, / lion, elephant, wolf, lamb and birds / looking at me as they flapped.”
Poetry |
“The Novel”
“Over the span of twenty pages / these quiet moments from the man’s past / are interspersed with his present / where a slow but steady trickle of information / allows us to piece together these facts …”
Poetry |
“Enthusiasts” & “Narrative”
“They understand a simple thing / is never simple and get / all electric about it, / like my beautiful friends / who ignite over words …”
Poetry |
“1986”
“That was the year my mom got a teaching job at my school. / Her classroom, a trailer on the tarmac.”
Poetry |
“Irreplaceable Plates,” “O Patriarca” & “Made Up”
“Behind many extant serious love poems / you’ll find a serious love poet // ejaculating into a ficus pot. // Whether you wanted him there or not. // Always straining to make the sea sound / sexual in a new way.”
Poetry |
“The Singing Dark” & “Autumnal Equinox”
“When it was time to choose / a new body, I opted for the owl, the fire ant, / the hound dog.”
Poetry |
“Tacoma Narrows”
“No word is safe when our leader lies, & small lies matter / as much as big ones — one whisper of deceit // swells in the retelling, then ripples outwards in a widening / wave.”
Poetry |
“The Old Spinet”
“I riffed on this / diminutive piano — / small soundboard / and short strings fine / for starters, until the baby / grand would surely / take its place …”
Poetry |
“Woman with a Trump Mask in the Medical Center Waiting Area”
“She walks with a limp to the reception window. / Overhead, the light fixture twitches and dims. I slump / down into my phone. A moment later, with a sigh / she lowers herself onto the seat across from me …”
Poetry |
“18 West Eleventh Street, March 5th, 1970”
“Dave and I awake on the morning / before in the guest room on the second floor that is / furnished with English antiques, which is strangely / the first thing I think of in my disbelief when I see / the headline …”
Poetry |
“Tensile” & “One Suspect Plate of Tapas in Granada”
“So reported an unnamed surgeon one-hundred-fifty years ago. Whose office was upstairs from a rowdy Wyoming saloon.”