Poetry |
“Viola pedata (Birdsfoot Violet)”
“Magnified thirty-five times, / the birdsfoot ovary / appears to blossom inward, / three groups of petals / in pale green glass.”
Poetry |
“I Love Wonder Bread in This Poem” & “Missing Soul Report”
“Because I am a teenager in it. And because the 21st century has not begun to outrage me yet. / And because I am somewhat like a teapot in my bell-bottoms at this time.”
Lyric Prose |
“Gothic Punctum”
“He was on the point of leaving when the oboist, unwinding her yellow scarf, strode in. A pointed effort to pervert the Rorschach. Children pointing at stars through bare branches.”
Essay |
“Froberger — An Outward Journey Inward”
“The great landmarks of Baroque music are musical reflections of meditative prayer much in practice when devastation and sectarian conflict increased the intensity of spiritual yearning.”
Poetry |
“The Rains of Ljubljana”
“Schnapps and blueberry juice in glistening tulip glasses / to greet us as we step from the deluge. // Ljubljana, because of the music of its name. / And because I’d once heard Tomaž Šalamun read.”
Poetry |
“September Ars Poetica”
“In Gaelic, fox is sionnach, or madra rua / (red dog), rain-beaded, skinny; a fox / querying for food, pantomiming / with his paws something indecipherable.”
Lyric Prose |
“Ars Poetica: Aww”
“You love coming to the dentist, says my dentist with his fingers in my mouth. After I rinse, I smile and say no, I just like you!”
Poetry |
“Suspect Routes” & “Explain the Heart”
“… Frigid abode / where spurned fools pour gasoline on embers, / feeding unspoken thoughts to their remorse.”
Poetry |
“Transplants”
“A nursery clerk sold her on these / invasives — They’ll be 10, 20 feet, / in no time — the city girl believed.”
Poetry |
“Outcast” & “Kenosha”
“Not everyone has money / to repair damage from evil. / My job here is to protect / the people and their businesses. / Dad lives here. / Mom drove me here.”
Poetry |
“Who’s There?” “At Speed” & “Stray”
“I was surprised when the figure I had taken for a statue or a standing stone opened its arms to receive the woman running from a nearby door and became a man.”
Literature in Translation |
“About A Comet,” “Cretan Night,” “Among Debris” & “At Nechrance”
“The calm before the storm will become the storm before the endless calm, / from which you will poke things through a slot to the other side / there, where you lived.”
Poetry |
“Yogi Says”
“I am also learning // the point is to keep going, like the girl who fell miles from the sky / after lightning struck her plane …”
Poetry |
“On Language,” “Riccardo Scamarcio” & “Gasometro”
“You make me wish / to hold something / beyond the world I know, / where I will remove / scenes I never felt close to.”
Poetry |
“Commerce (from Fingerling Lakes)”
“Mom’s paying me / in cinnamon rolls // to help her at / the Bake Sale // in the Church’s milky / cinderblock basement”