my lover is left-handed I read poems about death & think of my lover. Susan Browne wrote, “2500 left-handed people are killed annually from using right-handed products.”(1) My lover is left-handed. He could be one of them. The man already wears a CPAP, chokes nuggets of pills for diabetes at 38. Where’s the fairness in […]

Rhapsody of Icarus where Daedalus is an Orchardman He believed in miracles. He buried a mustard seed in the earth,& watered it every morning & night. For days. & months. &years. & from every seed, there wasa tree. Then, a grove. Then, gravity pulled fruits off their branches. Then, his son, off the branch of a healthy oak tree. The […]

last payphone in times square she came up to my eye. i asked to borrow a pen. people attend the removal of the last payphone in times square.  i wrote her number in a note- book stained into lines. a power saw is used for the phone. eulogies are said. first time i called set […]

Sonia This is a poem about enlightenment. No, I lied. It’s probably just a poem about Sonia the concierge, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. Sonia is a mystery to me. One day I noticed she was wearing a silver necklace with a Sanskrit symbol on it. There were two swirled, rolling letters. Maybe OM. So Sonia does yoga, I thought, […]

Few Exceptions Unaccustomed to my vacant life, I come slowlyuntetheredas if treading on birds. We are imperfectinstruments—I make up my mindto read Ulysses out of spite, again,and pay to spend time in a greenhouse,ironically.Under its ribs, which pushinto the sky,the mist falls across my face, hissing.The fronds of an overgrown cabbagecup my head from above,as […]

March Spring wets us with longing.Pale bloom, green fuzz. Mossgrowing in the cracks betweeneverything. Wearing the rainon our faces. This, right now,is the best part: the opening.Thin spray of pink light,I’m opening with you.I’m dew and I’m honey on breadand I’m singing along to the wordsI remember and humming thoseI long ago forgot. Nobody grievesthe […]

Breathing America Brown Dad flooded the house with English;  it swept through the open front and back doors  and trickled in through drafty windowsills.  He stored it in the cabinets and refrigerator  to pour out in the face of want. Sentences were broken: no English, no eat.   Brown Dad understood a human body, like […]

Regarding Cairns                           In the beak year                of bird,                      we observe              bird—             though some, fashioned                    by man, stone-birds                         not flying.                   So instead, I pray and gift                     such a peach-blossom                         morning to my brother,              together with this […]

The Best in the Midwest There’s a town in Indiana called Liminality. I’ve never been. Liminality is the name above the bank, the name crowning the post office. The school, the police station, the church. The diner, famous for its hash browns, The Best in the Midwest! Letters arrive in Liminality from elsewhere and disappear. They […]

The Penitent Kneels in Rubble What he couldn’t say: That he’d been swallowed whole and couldn’t see a way out. That faith is a useless weapon against falling sky. The weight of heaven, too great. That he could see himself fading, was almost invisible in the mirror of Room 214 of the Grantmoor Motor Lodge. […]

It Was Not Midnight, It Was Not Raining Let’s call this our sixth anniversary. Yes, we married last January but six years ago drank our first pints together—the two of us at Kelly’s swiveling on corner stools, talking Beckett and Bashō like we knew something. It was Halloween. We met a man named Elvis though […]