Poetry
Metamorphing Frog
Where the lake has lapped / onto rock, where the storm / has dropped a puddle, / a lopsided frog / with full back legs / and tiny front fins / bobs...
Blazing Star
(mentzelia laevicaulis) / in the rubble at the foot of the cliff / next to the old volcano gone / bankrupt and stone cold / dead, at the edge / of the...
Contest Winner
Proof of an Afterlife
In the graveyard at Ottawa, Illinois, / Geiger-counters detect the afterlife. Here / and all across town in landfills the white dust / of radioactive radium and zinc sulfide – / kissed...
After Drinking Too Much Gin
When, having showed you out, I sat / down at the table again, I kept going, / almost to the floor; / / Funny the way everything seems to run in....
Sestina on the death of an American icon
We both swore we wouldn’t see the new Batman, but then Heath Ledger died. / I’m amazed by the outpouring of naked / emotion (500+ “RIP” groups on facebook) — / it’s true,...
28 spring tide
Your young volcanic mouth: river, milk, honey. / This heat wave, consumed and consuming / / your first knot: a heart unraveling, bravely / into the ocean. You spawn stones of...
Cat Scratch Fever
Ten / spooked claws / snagged your skin, / and two cross jaws / made a mouse of your / pink and defenceless thumb, / spurring a microbial war / in your...
Photograph of a girl on a slum doorstep in 1912
Yes, she sits like that everyday. / Yes, she answers quickly when you speak. / Yes, she just got it recently, was diffident. / Yes, her mother told her to tie up...
Dance
the mind of the hunting hawk. thought can be as hard to move as a rusty red wheelbarrow. / that person from Porlock. we’re political to the extent that we love. a...