My Hematologist Listens to My Love Songs
As he daintily places the stethoscope on my skin.
First the heart, my left bundle branch block(ed) heart
where no electricity has seen the light of day.
His breath is fig-marmalade sweet.
My Hematologist Listens to My Love Songs
As he daintily places the stethoscope on my skin.
First the heart, my left bundle branch block(ed) heart
where no electricity has seen the light of day.
His breath is fig-marmalade sweet.
Winterberries
I’m sorry says the doctor with his finger inside me. I’m sorry says my shimmering body. Green penny. Sunlit fish. The lights gallop inside from wherever they went. The only way forward is through. And the only …
Read Moreafter Brigit Pegeen Kelly
The eye was open, and wide, and writhed in a wretched way,
Not as a marble would roll out of a child’s hand, no, it writhed
Like a worm would away from its halved self.
Devotional Image and Eating-Paper
My prettiest dress will one day
be worn by another my hip would then be
as her husband would tell her just a
little curve in the mirror legs under
silk he says do
a. Driving Home from the Night Shift, Our Mother
Listens to Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway”
She cracks the window,
letting the cold air
slap her awake. Cranking
the radio, she sings
along as she leans
into the burn of …
We are here now. Not where we said we would be. But also not where we never thought of. We are here. It is still unknown whether we will be on our way. Whether we will be tortured. But for …
Read More
I Had an Uncle Who Crushed by War
returned to his novel in a box,
feeding chapter by chapter to the furnace,
winter 1944.
Start again: My uncle handed every all of it
to coals my grandfather
Anti-Elegy for the Trees
How tired I’ve grown of the trees their weeping
boughs, the musty slop of the leaves they discard, wanton, wet
on the ground their seedy fruit ripened into rancor
their stagnation that passes for
To a Friend Who Reads Poetry
for Muriel Rukeyser
She was so wonderful,
Large in every way,
Her voice out
Of that deep and ample chest,
Her eyes, steady
In an unsteadying way.
Large in spirit, a passion