Poetry
On leaving, my lover
unbraids soft neck garlic, detangles / the hairs with amateur cook precision to avoid / / flakes, crumbles. The upstairs neighbour is running / a bath for her disabled son. He...
Ruby Roses, Kiss Goodbye
You, who saved me from hardening, / let me not harden now / / but walk into the world, disarmed / yet escorted by these emissaries: / / two ruby...
Herschel Island
In my dream I am walking / on the edge / of the world. ...
Cadence
I’m writing to let you know the microwave is working again. Not because / anybody fixed it. No one here is that clever. It just started working again. We / never stopped...
A Change
At first it’s your hands, blistered, / mat studs making soft flesh / raw, your back, pulling, heaving, / splintered, like working against / a wall, and your shoulders, tight, / burning,...
If It Tumbles Down
Battling here-or-there-fatigue / in brilliant yellow darkness. / The tiniest sounds of fracture — / all eighths disappear from the Inch River. / / Tomorrow the lights go out, the bone /...
Prayer for a New Song
Here in this narrow seat / with a god’s eye view / from the belly of unfathomable / mechanics, 36 077 feet / from the Earth, I want only to grace /...
We See Here, He Said,
only one soldier on the porch, and only for a moment. / Army is a visiting ferris wheel, he whispered. A carousel. / / The carousel’s accordion-clefted orbit arrives regardless of...
Bad Help
On Marley’s wall in ’64 hung Melba Ogle, / center-fold. Bad help is a turn-off she said. / / Bob said ’scuse me to the girl in his bed, / There’s...