Genre: Poetry

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 like …

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 …

Harakiri

Yukio Mishima, why did you kill yourself like that? Why did you slowly plunge the sword into your insides and turn it? Why did you sit breathing in your slow death, watching your blood drain onto the floor—without …

Verge

Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron
A prayer for daughters, for Myrto and Atalanta
τάς τε κόρας, Λιμνᾶτι, κόρᾳ κόρα, ὡς ἐπιεικές

Day-trip from Athens, on a day
Too fine for anyone to stay

Within the walls—and so we …

Look, I said, I ’d love a revolver, love to bother the silence
with my aim: hole a target. It’s like bowling but with 

a more fearful invention. It’s fun, haven’t you ever
shot one? This, my …