Poetry
Cervical Vertebra Variation (3)
Backward-fold the cervical atlas. The spinal incunabulum articulates the isochronal loral line. Hollow bone archaeology. Canarygrass reed, elemental cannulae, transitional fossil thoracentesis (Pulmonarius lithographica). Cryptic / / Archaeopteryx. Air-swindler. Non-bird bird. ...
Plague of Interpreters
Long after I have left / this room, I am still somewhere. / If not here, there. / If not there, where? / / Later I see A. / on the...
No Poem for Manitoulin Island
You envy nothing. Not the firm riot / of trees casting closer / as boat pulls to shore. Not / shore. Not road. October’s / / chroma wash blank / against...
Umbrella by the Dumpster at Night
O short-stringed kite of the underworld / O flightless black moth / / O crumpled cage of the rainless / O question mark of the masses / O hustler at doorways...
Drive
No one will find us in this city — not your valentine, / not the line of dogs he’s chained by the throat. My collar / blooms chin-high, is perfumed with lilac where you...
London Plane
That plane tree caught my eye / when I first walked here. A maple, / the sellers said, wife streaming / with allergies each spring. But it was, / no, a plane...
When I Was Good, Still
It was a time when I was good to all / the world, a time when all the world still called / me good. The smoke from Ide’s kitchen mounts / ...
Rocks Grew in the Fields
rocks grew in the fields in the spring: / this was not a wonder; ice moving in earth / clenching and releasing them, pushed them / into the light over generations; /...
Playground
All those awkward years / you didn’t realize you were training: / / Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack / clapped fast, fast, faster / to the recess bell / /...