A Poem —

A Poem —

A Poem —

A Poem — Young, and drunk already on your youth, You think maybe you’ll find religion at the bottom Of a bottle: head thrown back, eyes to God, You drink until every streetlight wears a halo, Until every face, lit sinister in the club’s black lights, Glows innocent and beatific. You don’t need…

A Sestina — So many nights you’ve traced you fingers along the jagged Lines criss-crossing her arms like a subway map, each scar a train That she swears is out of service; but you still wonder where they lead, What coaxed her underground, left her on that desperate platform to catch That elusive ride, that escape that…

A Poem — The water in the dishpan has gone cold, The lather of suds dissipated to a thin, Iridescent sheen on the water’s surface. She has rescued the forks and knives From the depths of the murky bath Like a diver on a recovery mission, And scrubs each, one by one, with care…

A Poem (Haibun) — We wait until your parents fall asleep before we clamor out your bedroom window — not quite such a grand gesture in a bungalow, but the feeling, God, the feeling is a low, delicious tingle somewhere just above your tailbone that makes all your hair stand on end and your…

A Sestina — You wonder if you’ve ever experienced silence. At night, you hear the trees, Clawing desperately for purchase at your window; in the space Between your walls, you can hear the house slowly crumble, The termites gnawing at the beams to satisfy insatiable hunger. …

A Sestina — You press so close I can feel your heart against my back; your fears swarm like bats, Hiding in the rafters, nesting in the spectral shadows of the cathedral ceiling. But here is my sword, An ancestral relic, and there is your fine china, each perfect ivory demitasse ready for high tea. Here…

A Poem — CW: Abuse, vengeful violence. Like a forest loves a fire, Or a fish, a hook, Or a jaw, a fist; I’ve loved you the way the shorelines Love the hurricanes, And the way the trembling fawns Love the rush of headlights Down the county roads. I’ve loved you the way…

A Poem —

A Poem — Not even dawn, and already I’ve disrupted a family of birds Nestled, as they were, In the amber beach grass. With startled chirps, they settle on the narrow slats of the sand breaks; Plump-breasted plovers, feathers ruffled Like disgruntled gentlemen In rumpled cravats. In this blue hour, I watch them…

An Abecedarian —

A Poem —

A Poem —

The way her veins snake through her body, the elaborate labyrinth Of her circulatory system, or the steady pulse of her indecisive Heart; the way her neurons fire off into the ether, her inconsistent Hormones, and the way the moon strings her along to bleed like a ceremonial Sacrifice — these are the miracles…

If I can learn to love this body — If I can learn to love this body, the orange-skin pucker Of my thighs, and my breasts, like fruit grown too heavy On the branch — If the cup of my wife’s hand runs over, the swell of My breasts an ample cascade between the fissure Of her fingers — …

April/May/June — April March seemed eternal, yet How far removed I feel today From the ice-capped mornings, Watching the snow melt out In an ever widening radius From the epicenters Above the rabbit burrows. But today, buds like tight-clenched fists Shake beneath the weight of birds Hopping anxiously on the boughs Of trees, worrying small stones They…

An Abecedarian — August raised us up, buoyed like kites, Backlit against the cloudless sky; Children, though we’d deny that we were, Delighted in the freedom summer still afforded. Every dandelion seedling was a wish For one more sun-filled hour, one more blessed day. Grass-stained shorts, laying bare-backed in the dirt, Hair tangled, half-naked…