Poetry |
“I Bend,” “Fruit in the Borrowed Home” & “Snow Years”
“your snow birthday is when how / many years you’ve seen it is the same as how many years / you have left (I had a snow birthday once)”
Poetry |
“Domesticated”
“I decide that the Hungarian language, obscure as it is, resembling almost nothing else. derives from the movement of Mongolians on ponies.”
Poetry |
“The Shape of Moving”
“It’s where the wind ends, his note says, / and no one finds him for so long he’s been eaten // by insects and vultures — all but his bones and cap …”
Poetry |
from Leaving: A Poem from the Time of the Virus
“… nobody // themselves anymore, not a single apparition, / withdrawal after defeat // but no destination.”
Poetry |
“Poem About Remembrance,” “Poem About Literary Scholars,” “Poem About Journalists,” “Poem About God,” “Poem About Appearances,” “Poem About Death”
“Memory requires kindness and clean air. Hence, it’s easier to care for memories in Bermuda than in Eastern Europe. It’s only with seagrass in the mouth that one remembers elegantly.”
Poetry |
“You Learned an Anne Sexton Poem”
“You learned an Anne Sexton poem, / to share at my Quaker wedding. We worried over one word, / a tiny one that made the stanza sing. But would my mother want to hear it, / from the pew?”
Poetry |
“Variations”
“Jenny showed us patterns on her viola / through the spastic tinkle of Zoom. // I tried reading some of my Goldbergs poems, / mostly inaudible.”
Poetry |
“My Mother’s Pocketbook”
“… a linen hanky reeking / of Jungle Gardenia, / a rain bonnet folded neatly // in its plastic sleeve …”
Poetry |
“After a student tells me her allergies are due to botanical sexism, I look it up” & “Summertime”
“Growers bred new cultivars / avoiding troublesome lady / or hermaphrodite trees; // they bred boys, boys, boys all day …”
Poetry |
“Unwritten” and “Prayer at the Masked Ball”
“I’ve worn this face // since birth, / and now I want // it off. / I need a god // to remake me …”
Poetry |
“Figuration” and “Pandemonic”
“The silence of lawn chairs in falling snow, / half-built houses draped in tarps, / satellites that blink across night sky, / their lights a pulse that leaves no trace.”
Poetry |
from “Mandarin Pandemic Diary”
“Now the neighbor’s black cat is already hunting. / Birds, be careful. I’ll be careful. / I remember. I forget. / The black cat, like rain, disappears.”
Poetry |
“Last November” and “Tracks”
“The heat broke in the night and we woke to our breath / swept the ash from the hearth lit holiday mailers / with a long lighter so logs would catch …”
Poetry |
“Ololyga” and “ordure”
“Soon it was ash falling on everything falling / on the invisible frequencies of an Internet of pain // the women had strung across and through themselves.”