Category: Poetry

He’s watching Downton again: the pompous men and petty girls, proud of the nothing they have. All teeth and jowls and starch, thoroughbred characters and thoroughbred actors,  look like birds. Hearts of gold, some.  The gold needs polishing with time— The gold needs scrapping, if we’re talking the now.  A frame can be too heavy…

That blue wolf’s a quiet one. No howls in the night. He needs  none of the pups to follow him down the basement.  Untoward things lie at the bottom. Skulls and gold bars. War medals. Or, a simple past. A last stand  for the old-fashioned crank who thinks taking the album out will yellow the…

They called it diligence, the fourteen-year-olds snorting Adderall. The spelling bee could make or break college apps, but excellence was not flattering. Rhinestones were. That was the look.  Eyes stuck with paraffin and glitter, per the Sephora tutorial, and shorts cut shorter than panties. What a cringe word. Don’t say it—and don’t look! They’re changing…

Coming on two years, it’s like driving down a hill, past the cut lawns and little dogs and the names you had for them. I’ve been happy, moving fast and talking TV and pet peeves to keep others at bay. Honesty means slowing. Mowing the grass. I do it over the sink, cutting my bangs…

I covered my heart, but the swords swung higher, going cool and easy into my ears. I should feel silly for the miscalculation, but they’d slide through my fingers if I tried to block them. In the quiet cone of the kitchen light, when there’s nothing left but a spotted banana, a spatula, a phonebook,…

Lie to me that you’re sun-crazy, that the cross wife wagged your mouth, and you take it all back, with hydration. The sun had you scared of your shadow and mine, eating us feet first before you plucked up the nerve for a kiss. I resent your cowardice.  And mine.  I can see us being…

What does it matter that I am neglectful, when no body but mine goes hungry? What stake have you in these four ribs—and those? Do not condescend to know my heart, or that I have one all myself  and more to give, or that  anyone deserves my fragility. You do not, sir, so that we’re…

The poet welded a word-suit of iron He thought it would keep as he  kicked off the ground. Whether it did or not, what comes up must come down.

Neither those I choose to show, nor those I guard, I am the middle of my vanities: the shuttered form between the two chevals  that curves into a swarm of selves unknown. I am the shadow sucking at my heels; it won’t let go to live a proper life. I am the leech, the moth,…