Genre: Poetry

Love Poem with Parenthetical 

I

Shadow branches rise through our bedroom window     
It’s garbage day     Tuesday     We hear squeaky wheels 

a blue jay lifting from the sky      the small sighs of waking
We’ve unplugged the clock      and can’t …

Happiness Is Very Hard (Is It)

If pain secretly visits and sleeps over
In a zigzagging night 
The body, like a habit-driven curve,
Will become bitter and stiff at the right time
Or it will try to lie flat …

Soon after he came home to Arkansas,
mother’s cousin Larry became a stone on a hill.
She tells of the monkey leashed

and taught to ride his shoulder
as he walked the couple blocks to Main
when they were young, …

It’s        Like This     I Told the Archangel

                                                                     who can’t swim—

crazy     crowded     under great waters

two hours from shore and so misleading   dull vast gray    not even blue if you 

look from the boat   a great nothing really      except …

Xī’ān Nocturne with Jasmine and Pears

I call my mother to tell her about a rare dream
in the first language:

               the fruit vendor’s miniature green pears 
               the soft juice I crave

               she pays but gets the wrong …

Sticky Note to the Moon

What a dust bunny you are in space.
America hacked into you, put a flag on your face.
You are not the sun, duh.
You white twisty tie on a bagged day.
You …

The Murmuring Grief of the Americas

You are on the ground, wrapped in a ratty blanket at the edge of the cage. The interpreter wedges her way into the corner. She sits on her knees, brings her head to …