some people light small fires—I, am lit. someday i will be won and not waiting: it is an old refrain, told by older woman; in the still afternoon i watch three sparrows circle my childhood, the greens glowing yellow, and i think— there is something waiting out there, there is something roaring.
Category: poetry
poem: stay-at-home woman
do you remember the red telephone, sitting like a silent cat, renovating the hall with its small plastic face? i watched you leave, the first day, and then i called my mother. the baby was twisting like an almond, a sliver in my ocean-split stomach; i put my hands over my mouth so she wouldn’t… Continue reading poem: stay-at-home woman
poem: the ancient man
his hands, holding me were like the ocean exploding in my mouth. and I brought the long fingers, the star-fish arms studded with sea spray and drowned crow gilt— i let them buzz me, the edges of things breaking against me like i was the world and he was the water.
poem: light yagami
he was a boy with stars in his eyes and the world laid out (carefully) at his feet. he walked too far, too fast. he missed the world and fell into the universe, into the cosmos. he came out— a god. he came out a scared boy with no better legacy than people dropping dead—… Continue reading poem: light yagami
poem: twisted
published also in one hand clapping magazine, in altered form if you put my face into wet cementit would not leavedefining marks. my shoes squeak lolita lolita lolita after i visit my father;walking across town makes towninto thin manga lines,the people slipping into hotpencil shapes and his thumbprintskeeping close watchon my ankles, on the young… Continue reading poem: twisted
poem: boy alone, watching a girl
there are lilacs coming up under her skirt— and she stands in shadow on the concrete, fat clouds making dreams behind her. i watch her and imagine: maybe my fingers are touching the raw strands of hair coming loose around her small face, instead of the sun. maybe if we breathed at closer times the… Continue reading poem: boy alone, watching a girl
poem: medieval rhapsody
maids stand legion— we have nothing but the iron on our checks, the sex rimmed over our lips as if we were bowls, made to pour out and be poured into. sir, if you would touch my check and untie the red skirt, I swear I will be true, I will not send letters to… Continue reading poem: medieval rhapsody
poem: Emily Dickinson was so wrong (or: moving on like a mature adult)
i put hope on the ceiling fan and turned it on and watched it fling off and splatter on the walls; my mother will be pissed, but I want her to know that the blue and the black now coating her plaster is how I feel, most of the time. for context, mother, let me… Continue reading poem: Emily Dickinson was so wrong (or: moving on like a mature adult)
poem: the pandemic is us
she is waiting at an inner-city line the bus pulls up blood-red, it is weeping corpses the bodies are old personas, old dissected diagrams of the same girl: she is ambition, desperation, romanticism. but now— she is washing and washing her hands trying not to be something she is not, trying to find the small… Continue reading poem: the pandemic is us
poem: there is always a lost generation
she is sitting with her face in the window watching the country blur into Monet and his outcast friends— she is always afraid, if she blinks she will miss the important moment when the universe pauses and catches her breath. the country falls louder and longer when when she picks up culture and tries it,… Continue reading poem: there is always a lost generation
the last pavilion 