Poetry

Rockport, Massachusetts, July 1999

I step inside a late 1990s photograph—no, not a Polaroid     with its hallucinated wash of color— Making my grand entrance in the diaphanous light     navy horizons darker than any of my native...

Five Poems

Dear Person You Think You Are Ask the person you think you are if she needs to lie down on...

Personal

The elevated words of sorrow the priest says in the church seem to comfort some whose losses are private and probably immeasurable. If you...

Train Overflowing

One man dug into the last seat as though to disappear & I didn’t know my husband was dying Lovers returned...

Death of James Dean

The one who is rarely, if ever, discussed is Donald Gene Turnupseed, the driver who collided with James Dean on the 13th...

Antonyms for “Cutlery”

Let's hit the road. There is a fork that leads to the sea and thousands of tiny pink spoons used to sample exotic ice cream flavors. Their sharp edges...

Purple Voices Whispering

The wild violets bloomed like tuning forks.   Their shimmer slowed the day, pulling at time’s hem as if desiring nothing more than a fuller skirt for the occasion. It was the sort of...

Amethyst Dreams

He leans on the bar in the pose of the Thinker lost in a reverie of Bourbon, odd bits of foolscap scattered about, coasters for peanut shells, and the odder...

Grendel’s Mother

GRENDEL'S MOTHER CONSIDERS THE GIRAFFES Nobody knows how you do it.have mewls and croaks and roars.you have your vast silencestares and ways scientists cannot uncover.all...

Shadows Sonance

The sobbing wail         of a baby … Or perhaps the cries         of a queen in heat ~  ~  ~ The deep song         of some night bird too-wee, too-wee, too-wee-wee-wee Or the warning...

Langston

I am a lit match, and when I lick fingers, they throw me away I can provide warmth, but all people see are destructive properties He will burn it down, they...