Today, I want to think about the clean slate of soil in the garden bed, and the old cat stretched to his max on the living room floor. When will I tire of his incalcitrant incontinence, scoop him off the hard wood and drop his fluff into the grass outside? Does he think about this... Continue Reading →
A secret ingredient hidden in all the dishes holds us together in fleur de lis, conversation looping,reversing in retrograde, central themes reviving.Frogs creak in the trees outside.Fall's first cold draws filaments to bind us: we are in love, we are all in love, not just withgin or spring rolls, crispy rice, spiced cucumbers. We are thinking about each... Continue Reading →
Two tired children tucked in bed, motherlovewhispered gently against their cheeks,light switches thrown, quilts tame on couchesmaking lazy hound-shapes in the dark.My feet are sure against the hardwood floor,here a dip due to age, here the cornerwhere I keep my winter crochet and books,each creak an amen, affirmation, home.Simple things: warm kitchen, mint toothpaste.A pilgrimage... Continue Reading →
In that tertiary night, not nothing and not sleep, or cousin of sleep, not even death, but there, in that, as it was in the uterus, before there was a world or uterus, what will I dream? You think you think you know. And say, like a guest in a familiar house, this room must... Continue Reading →
Dad listened to his records with his whole body,lay on his back on the living room floor, knees bent,fingertips perched on his ribs.I felt irritatedwhen I stepped around him,annoyed, as he got swept away.But when the babysitter arrived,I made her thumb through boxesof Dad’s recordsto find the one with the man atop a trainon the... Continue Reading →
asleep on a beachseagulls narrating my dreams—ocean lullaby Read More in Poetry
A rain shower, the wind in the pines,these former joys now bring a bolt of fear.The hurricane has worked its way intomy veins. Shock bleaches the path ahead.We leave the house behind. Not wishing to imposeon friends or relatives, we move from town to town.My employer calls it furlough, leave without pay. The return?Well, now,... Continue Reading →
After seemingly going missing in 1993, in 2016 Richard Hoagland’swife and children discovered he left willingly and had beenliving for the past two decades in another state with another family.In the mornings, the looking glass bore its own imagelike a child.From sounds that had been made beforecame sounds that had never been.From the water came... Continue Reading →
I’ll return in a bitafter another visitto that placethat looks like a deepfield-sized blue greeneye peeringout of the landinviting wonder backinto another oneof my hawking timeswhen I have againforgotten howto speak softnessinto the air around uswhen I am againcaught up in makingmy own facesof vexation, caved inI need to be checked outby that seeing eyethat... Continue Reading →
Burning with the evening sun — a shapeless, scarlet stainI ask you what your name could mean, and you whisper: “Rain.”The city’s drenched and stinking armpits choke me with cellophane.Sweating, gasping, heaving, panting, I keep on screaming, “Rain!”The pitter-patter, splosh and splatter, the pothole-stumbled sprainI ask them, children, “Who’s your mother?” they giggle and say,... Continue Reading →
