things written down

The Hits Just Keep On Comin'

2011-12-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

More new music from Squid Pro Crow: Volvox Minuet. Words by me; wonderful, wonderful music by Grant.
Volvox Minuet by Squid Pro Crow

Volvox Minuet
In one old studio my round instructor
is warming up her knees. Always the knees,
she said. You don't know what you've got
til it's gone. And then the music:
plaintive songs from long-
forgotten instruments.
My hair has slipped
from its braid. My teacher
counts, a hypnotist's trope,
and I am five hundred years ago.
The braid there has slipped too,
but there someone has bent
to mend it.

There is a pond on the way home,
a rich green plate of single-celled forms.
And in there two algae awaken.
A shy current pushes their arms
to preparation. The music begins.

Like new stars we all have been,
so blind to the cosmos and any orbit
but our own.

For more of our music, visit our Bandcamp page.

New Music from Squid Pro Crow

2011-12-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

Barnard's Star is reborn! Music by Grant; words by me; ambient sounds from the Voyager Golden Record.

&amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://squidprocrow.bandcamp.com/track/barnards-star"&amp;amp;amp;gt;Bhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifarnard's Star by Squid Pro Crow&amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt;

Barnard's Star
I send my heartbeat to you,
and the sum-song of my dreams.
Someday you'll unpack the impulses,
muscle-clicks like cooling cars.
Through endless fields of fire and dust
we send whale song, one noisy kiss.
Bach. A baby's cry.

Every other romance will wane
and waste away. Symphonies
are lost without their listeners.
Even the whale reduces
to a cage of bone and air.
But fast to you, Ophiuchus,
one whispered love is dancing.

For more of our music, visit our Bandcamp page.

This Morning, Miss Sally Is Singing

2011-10-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

Most mornings she mutters,
or protests her innocence
to coffee stirrers and pitchers of milk.

"I never did.
I never did see her."

But today, adding nine sugars
to her paper cup, Miss Sally is singing,
and her voice is low and strong.

"Be

grateful. Be
grateful. Be
grateful, oh Lord.
Be grateful."

photograph by Mathew Wilson

Surprise

2011-09-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

The baby wears some variation
of the same expression
in every single picture. Sometimes
it's more like panic. Sometimes
the best guess for her round mouth,
wide eyes would be amazement.
Turning the brittle pages,

you imagine the baby at ten years old,
twenty, forty-seven. You see her sitting
regal at seventy-five, arms opened
to accept the incoming child.
She looks down at her grandson
with her own mouth round in wonder,
her eyes grown wide with surprise.

(The beautiful child in the photograph is my pal Birdy Sparling. Her mom Kerri blogs here.)

Tomorrow Night!

2011-09-02T08:01:00.001-07:00

Get your tickets while you still can! The show is almost sold out.

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

2011-08-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

photograph © Victoria Smith

Good News, Everyone!

2011-08-24T08:03:00.001-07:00

Big news, too: in collaboration with Grant of the Guild of Scientific Troubadours, I've set some of my poetry to music, and may even be dabbling in songwriting. Our first team effort is a spoken-word version of "Watasenia Scintillans Addresses the New Graduates."

Watasenia Scintillans Addresses the New Graduates by Squid Pro Crow

Watasenia Scintillans Addresses the New Graduates
She clutches the podium with translucent arms.
She is older than her picture.
She closes her eyes slowly.
We all lean in.
"Life…" she says, tasting each costly letter,

"Life is short. Light your whole self up
every chance you get."

You can download the track over at Bandcamp if you're so inclined. Grant and I (collectively now known as Squid Pro Crow) have all sorts of good stuff in the works, so do stay tuned.

Stingray City

2011-08-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

Some time after we split up the china,
after I moved away, I found
two honeymoon photos still stuck together.
The glossy paper ripped as I pried
the pictures apart, and there we were—
well, there you were in one, and me
in the other. We never thought
to hand our camera to a stranger.

I took that picture of you
in the cove they call Stingray City,
where a slowing boat’s propeller
calls a swarm of the silky slate creatures.
You’re forever frozen in swim trunks, your hands
flat on the wolf-sized ray, your lips
poised to plant a kiss
on her slick, thrashing wings.

The Caribbean’s milky green in the photo
of me. I’m sun-glassed,
bikini-clad, up to my white waist
in water. Laughing because
why wouldn’t I be, twisted as I am
away from the horizon, away
from the approaching hurricane,
the clouds black as Stingray City.

The Werewolf's Wife Revisited

2011-07-25T06:36:00.001-07:00

The morning after Yom Kippur,
The one who was the werewolf's wife
Washes up on cool cotton shores
And wakes to begin a new life.

No sign of him whose howls caught
In her hot ears and wouldn't leave;
No sign of the most shameful thoughts
That were once all she could believe.

The hook for her red dressing-gown
Is empty, but upon the bed
A comforter of white goosedown
And soft pillows under her head.

With gentle hand over her womb
She traces the stripes and the scars
That, combined with this kind, bright room,
Will make her new days what they are.

With cautious smile she greets the light;
With shaky legs stands, marvels how
The one who was the werewolf's wife
Belongs only to herself now.

Read more of the tale of the werewolf's wife here.
Photograph by Gem

Blessed From Head to Toe (Finally, Some News!)

2011-06-02T15:05:00.003-07:00

I'll be reading my poetry in the Tiber Creek Cabaret at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Sidney Harman Hall on September 3. Tickets go on sale July 1. Click here for more information.

Hope to see you there.

"Light Crown" by Kelly Vivanco

Across the Universe

2011-05-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

In a gesture that embodies the spirit of the Voyager project in a very real and wonderful way, Grant from the Guild of Scientific Troubadours has written a song called "Golden Record" in response to my poem "Barnard's Star." I've reprinted the poem below, so you can read it and then go check out the song.

Barnard's Star
after Ann Druyan

I send for you my heartbeat,
the rhythms of my latest dream.
You are just now finding the frozen clicks
of muscles, cooling like just-parked cars.
Through endless fields of fire and dust,
we send whale song, one noisy kiss.

Every other romance
is nothingness now, every whale
a great cage of bone and blue air.
But fast to you, bright Ophiuchus,
one whispered love is dancing.

Minor Arcana

2011-05-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

Commuter tips her head to drop
the wide hood of her raincoat.

This morning, after the storm,
each shrub's a sacrament.

Rows of emerald goblets brim
with silver offerings.

The bare-browed queen of cups
pauses by the laurel, trails

a loving fingertip
through bowls of cool, wet light.

photograph by Edward Weston

The Preformationists

2011-05-16T16:47:00.001-07:00

Held each egg
   contained
      the entire embryo, writ small--
         complete
            with limbs, liver, and lungs.

   Stranger yet,
   this tiny embryo
      also contained
         eggs or sperm, each of which,
            in turn,
               contained
                  an embryo...
                     and so on, ad infinitum.

Each of Eve's ovaries,
by this reasoning,
   contained
      all future humanity.

I lay a hand on my belly.
Asleep in the darkness
   behind my tidy navel,
      a dormitory of astronauts.

Text for the first three verses adapted from Armand Marie Leroi's Mutants.
Illustration by Yoshitaka Amano

To the God of Rocks

2011-05-10T08:18:00.001-07:00

"Not for man, but for the bee, the moth, and the butterfly, are orchids where they are and what they are."

Neltje Blanchan, from Wild Flowers Worth Knowing, 1917

Then what are we to think
of the hapless geode? Why ever line
the stone’s stomach
with glittering, secret cities? What benign purpose
could these skylines possibly serve?

For a full stone age you sat idly by
as the peacocks bickered
on Olympus. Some glint
of their meddlesome eyes
must have bounced across the clouds.

And your poor geode would have slept--
cozy in his earthen nest—had you
not betrayed him. With a shameless brush
you tarred heartless stars
into his good gray skin.

And now the peacocks’ playthings
pluck your sparkling plum from the dust.
They gather with growing fists. Suspect his shine.
They chant for an answer. Smash him
to shards.

photograph by flickr user EDF Andromeda

Watasenia Scintillans Addresses the New Graduates

2011-04-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

She clutches the podium with translucent arms.
She is older than her picture.
She closes her eyes slowly.
We all lean in.
"Life…" she says, tasting each costly letter,

"Life is short. Light your whole self up
every chance you get."

luminescent painting by Katie Schuler.
more about the Sparkling Enope squid here.

Watching and Waiting

2011-04-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

Good things are in the works. Stay tuned.

photograph by Jorge Rimblas

Approach

2011-04-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

He is loose-fingered, cautious,
unbreathing yet. To him she is
a butterfly, only just
touched down.

But he is neither the collector
nor the net: to her he is
the full flower her tired feet
have found.

illustration by Martin Johnson Heade

On the Equinox

2011-03-18T13:19:00.001-07:00

Now Old Man Winter shakes his purse
And frowns at his barren accounts;
His manor crumbles with each curse:
How did he squander such amounts?

He thunders through the empty hall,
Opens the vault of hail and gust--
His savings--but he's spent them all;
Where once was sleet, now all is dust.

Now Spring steps cautious down the street
And shines each penny like it's gold;
She smiles at the sun's new heat
Because she remembers the cold.

Then Love creeps in, a child of Spring:
All pink, and pale, and tiptoeing.

photograph by Mikey Baratta

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

2011-03-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

from "Aurora Leigh"

And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing's small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:
And,–glancing on my own thin, veined wrist,–
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
photograph by Sarah Ryhanen

Tuesday

2011-03-08T05:43:00.000-08:00

Walking past the preschool
before Tuesday begins,
movement in the window.
The class rabbit (fat, white,
smug as a magician) has
escaped his cage. He sits,
preening on the play table,
watching the city sun rise.

photograph by Milena Agnieszka

The New Shampooer

2011-02-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

combs the women's shining hair
with giant fingers; he is tender, mesmerized
as any first-time lover.

He moves his bear-bulk
between the tiny sinks, all the while
humming, hoping to please.

He does not realize
how he blesses the wet-haired women,
whose temples have lain untouched
for so very long.

photograph by Kirsten Kapur

The Alchemist

2011-02-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

rehearses picking the runes--
E; B; F sharp--in
sorcerous order. He coughs
in the room.
He dials the number.
The world rolls like a wave.

In a valley of lead skyscrapers
her telephone rings.
With winter-heavy hands
she lifts it to a cold ear.
He takes a breath--

Her skin goes pink.
Her sky goes gold.

photograph by the incredible Alison Scarpulla

Licentious Spring

2011-02-17T18:05:00.000-08:00

Forsythia this morning
popped in shameless yellow
over the broken hedge.

photograph by Jennifer Way

Aphrodite in America

2011-02-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

The sign reads SPA WORLD. It's a
razor clam of a strip mall
dropped on a wet-sand sky.
The man inside takes my shoes.
He gives me a key on a wristband
the color of Monterey kelp.

Down a green corridor,
another locker takes my clothes.
An ink-haired matron
with rubbery arms scrubs me hard
with fistfuls of sand. She upends buckets
of warm water over my thighs.
I rise from the cushion of foam.

I come away lustrous, languid,
thoroughly shelled. I know
if I allow it, Spa World's ruddy cherubs
will pelt me with flowers
and drape me in pink silk.

detail from "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli

Eve After Eden

2011-02-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

I am not woman;
I am a pile of ashes. Like soft little shingles:
snug where the overlap is. But shingles of ashes,
and even the best cinder brace
dimples, chinks, and collapses
in the cold wind of your face.

photograph by Gideon Ansell

Following the Woodsman

2011-01-24T07:05:00.000-08:00

We walk for hours but he won't talk;
Boots in the snow become the only sound. At last,
A patch of pale pansies.
Miles through wildflower woods and this
Is all we find. Well done, winter.

I kneel with my basket. Silence. My breath comes
In cold clouds. Behind me, the little creak
Of his dagger leaving its sheath.
"It's all right," I say, and snap a stem.
"They're young. I don't need a knife."

Again, silence. One footstep.
Another. Metal flung onto the ground.
And then he is running,
And then he is gone.

photograph by Bree

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

2011-01-08T15:34:00.001-08:00

Straight Talk from Fox by Mary Oliver

Listen says fox it is music to run
over the hills to lick
dew from the leaves to nose along
the edges of the ponds to smell the fat
ducks in their bright feathers but
far out, safe in their rafts of
sleep. It is like
music to visit the orchard, to find
the vole sucking the sweet of the apple, or the
rabbit with his fast-beating heart. Death itself
is a music. Nobody has ever come close to
writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot
be told. It is flesh and bones
changing shape and with good cause, mercy
is a little child beside such an invention. It is
music to wander the black back roads
outside of town no one awake or wondering
if anything miraculous is ever going to
happen, totally dumb to the fact of ever
moment’s miracle. Don’t think I haven’t
peeked into windows. I see you in all your seasons
making love, arguing, talking about God
as if he were an idea instead of the grass,
instead of the stars, the rabbit caught
in one good teeth-whacking hit and brought
home to the den. What I am, and I know it, is
responsible, joyful, thankful. I would not
give my life for a thousand of yours.

photograph by Nathaniel Atakora Martin

Lady Lazarus in the Bath

2010-12-26T12:35:00.000-08:00

I have done it again.
One week in every seven
I ruin it.

Bones in the basin
And the sodden skin
Above it; I roll

On a beaded spine
And stain the fever liquid
With my rust.

The water in the
Curtain's shadow--
Once faucet-sweet--

Now might be the ocean's.
I leave my poppy-petal
Pigment in the tub.

These are my roots
My lashes now.
I may be tarnished silver;

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was scared.
It was an accident.

Now in voluntary
Madness I submerge,
Then, dripping my undoing, stand:

Out of the water
I rise with my wet hair
And only ashes to wear.

original poem here.
photograph by Pennie Naylor.

The Commuter's Ablution

2010-12-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

Sane women do not fantasize
about stepping
--bloused, pearl-studded--
into the plaza fountain
in December.

Sane women, she explains to herself
once safely past the water,
Sane women go in naked.

art: "The Fish Gatherer" by Aron Wiesenfeld.

The Grasshopper in Winter

2010-12-20T11:02:00.001-08:00

The grasshopper on the ground is dead--
not by boot, or hooting bird,
or by sultry spider--
but dead
as the grass, passed away,
and the hop that ceased.

His armor is accounted for,
though curled in the afterlife
into some aquatic thing.
The hop is gone,
but perhaps in that small beyond,
he swims.

art: "The Warrior in Winter," by Julia Jeffrey

Meeting Salvador

2010-12-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

galagalagalagalagalagalagala
At first I thought
it was cicadas calling my name.
The song rose and fell neatly
with the rest of the summer's ruckus.

galagalagalagalagalagalagala--
Not cicadas. The sound sped ceaselessly
from a second-story window.
From my plastic perch in the garden
I saw the pacing shadow
of the shy noisemaker.

He wrung his hands, released
the moan, which, escaping, crashed
and beat its fists against
the hot fence of my name:
Gala. Gala. Gala.

"Salvador Dali's love for Gala, a woman 10 years older than he and the wife of his friend Paul Eluard, exploded when they met; he realized numerous extravagancies to capture her attention, such as waxing his armpit and dying it blue, applying goat excrement to his skin and wearing a red geranium on his head. His emotion was such that, every time he tried to talk to her, he suffered uncontrollable laughing attacks."

The American Dream

2010-11-23T15:14:00.001-08:00

We wink at the fox
with the bird in his mouth;
"Clever fellow," we say.
But outrage dawns
with the sunrise sight
of a vacancy
in the henhouse.

Commuter Lessons

2010-11-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

My first week in the city
I learned to dress, check
the mirror, then undress, don
coat over camisole, lest
in the crosswalk trot
to the Metro stop
I bathe myself in sweat.
High heels and blouse go
in the canvas tote.
Sneakers go on the feet.

Week two was a city-face seminar.
Here I am, direct from New England,
where for an hour each morning
and one every night I watched the road,
peering for deer, defensive,
alert and observing.
Do that here and you'll get stabbed,
if you aren't arrested first.
Keep your eyes to yourself, girl.
Look hard at those sneakers.

Just this morning I learned the secret
of the reflector-jacketed man
who offers newspapers
at the top of the granite M stairs.
He is not a paperman.
He is the prop master,
equipping savvier commuters
with something not-sneakers
to stare at.

Selected English Gaps

2010-10-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

1. For Smiling and Shaking One's Head
There is no word
to type in response
to a very long joke
with a terrible,
wonderful punch line.

2. For the Realization of Sensual Potential
There is no word
to sing to the world
when the body,
in love, becomes
what it can be.

3. For She Who Is Both Widow and Orphan
There is no word
that fits in the mouth
for the mother
whose children
are gone.

"Starry Cover" by Milo Moyer Battick, 2009. Ballpoint pen on old dictionary page.

tensixteen (sub)

2010-10-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

i am
cold, under-u
tilized.

my tongue
tastes of copper:
the under-
side shines
with heavier elements.

the skull in my head
‘s rounder; some-
where there
‘s a green thread
knows why.
the wire night
stretches on
and bed
‘s as yet
unbidden.

all tea
‘s too weak.
kettle
‘s already lied twice.

i’ve thrown stones.
still no word.

so: dissolve the fissures.
so: swallow the spade.

photograph by flickr user Lady Vervaine

Found Verse

2010-10-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

The night is full of frogs and brakes
and planes en route to London;
But morning's sounds, when I awake,
will not tell where they come from.

The night is made from motorbikes
and large aircraft descending;
the dry leaves glide in gutters dry
to their own happy ending.

The night left me in ruffled nest
with one tear on my shoulder;
the daylight hours will serve as rest:
at sundown, I grow older.

photograph by Li Hui

In the Beginning

2010-10-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

She de-
sired him,
which is to say
removed his father
from the picture.

In her thirst
she overlooked
the clink of highballs
in the cupboards.

His father thundered
in the study. She
shut the double doors.

photograph by Inès ☆

Virtue

2010-09-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Two weeks before the move
You look hard at every cup,
Each one of your threadbare towels.
You envision sitting down on a rug far away
And pulling these things from a box.

Then you imagine a monastic existence,
A rug with no boxes. You've left
The cracked cups at the dump,
A bag of nice sweaters at Goodwill.
In the empty room you are proud
of the nothing you have. Then

In your mind the new doorbell rings.
Your neighbor has come
To introduce herself,
And she brought you yellow flowers,
In a cup she made herself.

photograph by Catherine Jamieson

Well, Hurrah!

2010-09-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Two more of my poems have been accepted for submission--"Ode Upon the Poem I Can't Remember" and "With a Glance At the Equator" will {theoretically} be published soon in Definitely Magazine in print and online. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: Online version is now live.

photograph by flickr user Carola's Look

Divorce, Part I: The Appearance

2010-09-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

My husband arrives late, slides
into the space beside me on the cold wooden bench.
Like it's Christmas Eve, like it's
a bar mitzvah we're waiting for,
he reads his book, and I search faces
for stories. Two rows up, a man
lays his hand gently
on his wife's back, stares
at her baby-weight-swollen feet.
We are all here for the same reason.

My husband chuckles into his book,
points at the sentence I should read.
I whisper in his ear the name of the town
where I'm moving. I double-check
his paperwork. I drop one
of my own white pills into his open hand.

The heavy door closes. With brittle knees
and thin breath we all rise. The judge
calls our names first.

photograph by E.L. Malvaney

Tag with the Big Questions

2010-09-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

You run and run, your mouth so dry.
You grope for a home base,
crying Who, and How, and Why,
and When will it be safe--

And then some unknown
tackles you, with arms measured to fit.
Why not somebody else, you say,
and the Answer says, "You're it."

photograph by Genevieve Goffman

What to Do When a Poet, Now Dead, Releases a New Book of Poems

2010-09-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

in memory of Deborah Digges

Read the editor's note.

Reflect that this manuscript
has been respected. Wonder,
when you read that they tried
to preserve her intentions,
how much of her handwriting spattered
each page.

Read the epigraph--something
obscure--well, that's how
she would have wanted it.

Read the apologetic jacket,
the back cover with its
flat, detached praises.
On the back flap, her photograph.

Look hard at the headshot
as though her eyes, warm even
in a black and white rectangle,
have some explanation.

Close the book.

Try again tomorrow.

Painting: Cloud #16 by Ambera Wellmann

Warily Pleased

2010-08-30T16:10:00.001-07:00

My poem "Laying Out a Yellow Dress the Night Before First Grade" has been accepted for publication in the brand-new Pitbull magazine. As one of the journals that accepted a poem of mine went under before printing that issue, and the other never seemed to go to press, I'm glad, but skeptical. It's nice that it's been accepted. We'll see if anything comes of it.

photograph copyright Vasilyeva Ekaterina

At Summer's End

2010-08-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

The cricket in the lavender
doesn't ever seem to sleep.

All night he chatters, and next morning
he's still got plenty to say. I don't know

how long crickets live, but surely
last night was at least one year of his life.

What could be so interesting,
so complicated that it takes

a whole year to tell?
I sit in the crabgrass. I've got time.

photograph by Molly Wizenberg

Yamamoto Baiitsu is Rebuffed by the Plum Tree

2010-08-07T12:31:00.000-07:00

Come to me in the autumn.
Give me the summer
to shed this hateful fruit.

Surely, in some season,
you have watered your own roots
with tears.

Yamamoto Baiitsu (1783-1856) was an artist who became obsessed with painting plum trees.
photograph by designedly kristi

The Holding Pattern

2010-08-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

After a long day of waiting
on standby in San Antonio,
I win a window seat. I sit.
The aluminum cradle rocks
as baggage is hefted
and temporarily dropped. More delays,
sings the pilot in the speakers.
Thunderstorms over Atlanta.

Eventually we leave.
The heatsticky clouds
are black potholes in the air.
Gold lightning laces dark earth
to dark sky. My world
turns sideways.

Gravity, you greedy girl,
give me a few more minutes.
I will be yours again
before this storm
is over.

photograph by Marko Tarvainen

Hubble

2010-07-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

You, sweet silver Jack-in-the-Box, you're an overgrown
Tinker Toy, a teaspoon lost in space. Your limbs are spindly hubris,
your very organs vanity. But oh,

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh. Oh. There's something in those vacant curves
that makes poets of press agents. Dry text
in the Science pages veers

into babble of cauldrons. One man mentioned emerald fire.
Hubble, dear lady, be gentle. We were naked before you
before you ever left Earth.

Gus at Sixteen

2010-06-30T16:47:00.000-07:00

When we are seven and he is four,
Gus drowns himself every day. "I'm thinking,"
he says, and the lifeguards learn
to disregard the screams. Gus floats

face-down in the shallow end,
with his hair like corn silk, hair that
goes green in pool water. His sister and I
do handstands beside the corpse.

Time passes. Us girls get out of the pool
to unwrinkle our fingers: suddenly
we've gone through puberty. Tonight in some lake somewhere
a dreamy Gus is lost in thought.
His poor new girlfriend is screaming.

photo: "Emmett Darling" by Sally Mann

Jalousie

2010-06-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

I am a hot bottle of the things you don't consider.
Rushing forth, inescapably boiling, I'll soak your cuffs
in an impotent flood
and puddle out of sight
of the Wet Floor sign. Come slide a little in me,
my asbestos friend.
If I am scalding, you should be burned,
who waltzes unharmed in good lava.

painting by Bobi + Bobi

Collision

2010-06-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

Traffic is stopped on Old Shelter Rock Road,
Where usually there is no traffic.The minivan

Couldn't have been doing more than thirty,
But the motorcycle, crushed and grounded,
Gleams dully on the street.

Someone has covered the rider's face with a shirt.
He's laying on his back across the yellow lines,
Knees up like he's reading, or watching
Clouds go by.

photograph by Kou Hattori

Tink's Lament

2010-06-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

What is she, this Wendy-Bird,
that falls and calls so prettily?
I've sung for years
in your silver-tipped ears
but 'twould hurt you none
to be quit of me.

She cannot fly; she has no light,
no flowers in her gown;
Yet for her name, you'd learn to write
and set your dagger down.

She'll leave you, boy, and take with her
the hearts of all your men;
And like a boy, you'll forget her,
and be all mine again.

This giant girl will make you cry
and scold you when you crow;
So leave her there, this Wendy-Bird--
the sky is ours. Let's go.

Illustration by Trina Schart Hyman

I Brought Him Water

2010-05-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

I never thought I could save him.
I'm no veterinarian, nor would I really
want to interfere. What would
Uncle Darwin say, to see this creature
in my arms? Well.

But shelter, I thought, and clean towels
for a nest. Sanctuary. A twilit place
for licking that valentine wound. Sleep.
No copperheads. I never thought
I could tame him. Get to know him, maybe:

Stroke a fiery ear, watch his paws
in fever dreams. Foxes can't
be tamed--don't you think I know that?
I brought him water.

I approached slowly. I nodded off
beside him on the kitchen floor.
I awoke bleeding,
startled, alone.

photograph by Otsu Shigemi

Laying Out a Yellow Dress the Night Before First Grade

2010-05-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

She sleeps. You're pacing, tidying
the corners of her room. One loveworn giraffe
near the dresser, a flattened ankle sock
by the door. The sock, the color of crowded chicks
you watched in the coop this morning.
Peeping, vibrating, one great mass
of parentless fluff, the chicks fed
from their new trough. Small beaks.

Such businesslike eyes. They circled one oblivious bird,
her crabbed foot caught in the water dish.
She hadn't hid the smear of red. Chirping still,
the sweet chicks frenzied. You sat frozen,
one hot hand to your mouth
until your husband found you.

Tomorrow morning, your daughter will ask you
why not the red dress.
You will say there was a stain.

photograph: "Naptime, 1989" by Sally Mann

In Spring

2010-04-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

Everyone’s cold. To-do list
stretches miles and I won’t
get out of bed. Email from a sane man
screams I AM AFRAID
YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ME
and I’m dropping small tears
on your shirt but you’re
not in it. Kids outside
are doing what they’re supposed to,
screaming, pushing, falling down,
and I see your frown in a photo
and it’s frostbite on my bones.

You’re gone. Can’t feel
my feet, but lavender fingers ache.
Grief counselors preach acceptance:
You aren’t coming back.

I say, take me, wakening earth,
take what’s left of this frozen stone.
Close that wound up. Let spring begin.

photograph by Allie Taylor

A Complete List of My Regrets (So Far)

2010-04-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

1. Brad—
Lenox? Linden?
Lennon?—
definitely him.

2. And two months ago,
when I had the chance,
not stepping over
the ankle-high fence
to take your hand
and stand with you,
laughing, under the biggest willow
on Saint Stephen's Green.

photograph by Esther Moliné

Sea Green

2010-04-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

I.
The shores at Shankill
are mostly deserted;
rocks roll in the waves
as the far sun sets.
You pull paper plates,
a bottle from your jacket;
I dig in my bag
for the late lunch you packed.

Olives; hard sausage, cubes
of white cheese, bumping
cradle-gentle in their green oil.

II.
You're fishing deep dark pockets
for the silver forks you fingered;
in my head I'm reading
wet words
from your last letter. That same picnic,
the same stumbling surf, the same far sunset:
the same circumstances,
and some other me.

Phosphene

2010-04-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

Man, you are man, mosaic--
One shimmering image, three kinds of smiles,
Ten frowns--

We think of loss
As a hammer; juggernaut;
Bowling ball; forest fire;
The river, shaving stone. I
nevitable.

But loss
Is an a
mbush, and each wind
Blinds me anew
With handfuls of sand

That were tiles

That were blue

That were gray

That were blue

Green eyes.

Widow at the Orthopedist

2010-04-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

He takes my right hand gently,
touches each fingertip. I look at the door.

I wouldn't have come.
It's never hurt this much before.

Every day? he asks, turns my palm
to the white ceiling. Cross pens clink
in his breast pocket.

No, I finally manage. Some days
I don't feel anything. Some nights
numbness is what wakes me up.

Everything is just so slippery.
Nothing will let me hold it for long.

photograph by Lara Korlara

To Endymion

2010-04-06T18:05:00.001-07:00

Really, when you think about it--
though I guess you wouldn't--
this is the most perfect
of perfect loves.

No Thursday night after nine years
will I catch you
with my sister. In dreams
you have us all, my dear. In dreams,
I don't mind.

No Sunday morning in January
will you barge in as I'm waxing;
never will you watch me
dig broken glass
from a hunt-night's feet.

I'll always be just this radiant
to you, my moonbound boy.
Besides, beloved, if you

could speak,
you wouldn't be
nearly so charming.

"Diana and Endymion" by Walter Crane.
More on Endymion here.
This poem needs a lot of work. Any suggestions?

Resurrection (Noli me Tangere)

2010-04-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

from a small cave--
wine dripping--
smeared with clingy dark,
my own heart emerged

and strode past
my outstretched hands

detail from "The Repentant Magdalene," by Georges de la Tour

Spontaneous

2010-03-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

A friend of your neighbor's uncle
was incinerated in his armchair. Lit cigarette,
someone will say. People don't just
go up like that.

Or down, you think, or down, watching
the ventilator accordion.
There's always
that cigarette.

photograph by Connor Creagan
spark here

From the Journals of Sylvia Plath

2010-03-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can’t be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.

Still nothing. I don't know where it's gone.

The Lovesick Ornithologist Justifies Her Plane Ticket

2010-02-24T18:37:00.000-08:00

Iron containing short nerve branches in the upper beak of birds may serve as a magnetometer to measure the vector of the Earth magnetic field (intensity and inclination) and not only as a magnetic compass, which shows the direction of the magnetic field lines. Whether this magnetic map is consulted, strongly depends on the avian species and its current motivation to do so...research has...suggested that magnetic compass and magnetic map sense are based on different mechanisms and are localized at different sites: The magnetic compass resides in the eye, the magnetometer for the magnetic map lies in the beak.
Dr. Gerta Fleissner

So that's it then, lovebird of mine:
our eyes alone won't do it. Point A
to B, I see it, sure,
but won't find my way to it.

I'll fly and fight and never tire
until this ocean's crossed;
but 'til we're mouth
to mouth, my dear, I'll be
as good as lost.

original bird-compass article here.
photograph by Claire

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

2010-02-11T19:00:00.001-08:00

Lorelei

It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,

The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float

Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous

With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear

Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening

Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony

Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge

Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source

Of your ice-hearted calling --
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963)
illustration by Arthur Rackham

Hurricane Season

2010-01-28T17:42:00.000-08:00

The ship set sail in September,
puffed with whatever the summer left over.
Clouds clotted on the horizon.

He was cheerful, rum-cheeked,
captain of the great tall thing.
I was a mermaid lashed

last-minute to the bow.
With white painted hands
and featureless breast I was there

to pray away the storms,
an empty-eyed envoy to Neptune
to prevent what my captain pretended

wasn't coming. And so I prayed,
arms at my sides in the sick gray surf.
I prayed, no tongue

in my wooden mouth,
as the ship sucked
into the sea.

My captain spun the massive wheel
as though the sails would save him.
I was swallowed and spit out.

The bowsprit creaked.
The ship tossed the captain's body
like a baby. He was dead weight.

The boat went down,
and as the whole mess groaned
his face swept past me,

blank as my own.

Years.

So many years,
we've reincarnated. He's
the archaeologist fighting

to save the rotting wreck.
I'm the biologist
five hundred feet down,

drinking cool air like it's water,
learning from the shipworms
just what sunk ships

are good for.

photograph by Ana Cabaleiro
inspiration here

I've Tried Flint and Steel and Sulphur and Sunlight and Lenses and Gunpowder and Dry Wood and Straw and Concentrating Really Hard

2009-12-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

But still nothing. No spark; no words come. With no other real option open to me, I'm going to take some time off from poetry, just until the words return. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know your favorite poem; I'm always glad to read new things, and there's no balm for the blocked pen quite like a good poem.

Stay well, friends. I'll be back.

First Night By the Baby Monitor

2009-12-15T19:49:00.000-08:00

for Zippy--she'll be fine.

Daughter, in pitch black, two shapes:
the thick, blurry line of night
doing what it does, coldsucking
tender flesh from your every fingertip;
but beside it, the warm gray triangle,
furred, melting, that somewhere
contains you, sleeping.

photograph by Vanna

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

2009-12-08T06:27:00.000-08:00

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy, 
but with stars in their black feathers,
 they spring from the telephone wire
 and instantly 

they are acrobats
 in the freezing wind.
 And now, in the theater of air,
 they swing over buildings, 

dipping and rising; 
they float like one stippled star
 that opens, 
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again; 
and you watch
and you try
 but you simply can't imagine

how they do it 
with no articulated instruction, no pause, 
only the silent confirmation
 that they are this notable thing, 

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin 
over and over again, 
full of gorgeous life.
 Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us, 

even in the leafless winter, 
even in the ashy city.
 I am thinking now
 of grief, and of getting past it;

  I feel my boots
 trying to leave the ground,
 I feel my heart
 pumping hard, I want 

 to think again of dangerous and noble things.
 I want to be light and frolicsome. 
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
 as though I had wings.

-Mary Oliver

photograph by Jipps

My Mother Encounters Celebrities and I Misunderstand

2009-11-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

I.

One winter before I was born
my mother stepped into an elevator.
The silent brass doors slid
together too quickly and she toppled,
landing face-first

in Baryshnikov's striped mink coat.
She told me this when I was six
and leaping, a blizzard of tulle
and breathlessness around
her rocking chair. As I remember it,

I say now, He was rude to you.
Did Baryshnikov really push you?

Short, she says, looking over
the Sunday Style section. I didn't say rude.
I said short.

photograph by Chuck Domitrovich

An Appeal to Hestia, on the Eve of My Son's First Semester

2009-11-19T23:00:00.000-08:00

I make a fire in my hands and look skyward,
and then look down again; the goddess of what matters
doesn't dally in the clouds. Set the fire
in front of me. This small flame,
this first sacrifice, I offer,
where I can't draw in salt
or burn sweet herbs. Keep him warm.
Keep him safe. May his new home
be a new home and not
just a cold room, a room
too far away.

photograph by Tom

Palinode

2009-11-13T21:01:00.000-08:00

All right,
there was no werewolf.
I made the bastard up.

But what
would you have done
if you woke
to find red sheets?

A woman's dreams
make widowers
and murderers
of all men.

photograph by Marie France L

The First Year We Picked Ev's Apples

2009-11-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

for Sarah

November fruit falls on its own. The dogs are in the orchard now,
Carrying off the Blushing Goldens that wouldn't fit in the baskets.
Their eyes follow the dirt-dyed crates
As apples tumble into the press. We throw bruised fruit
At the setting sun. My father's hands are branches,
His back a twisted trunk. Cider is hard work.

My hands blister and burn. We stop and wipe our faces
With the backs of sticky hands. The acre beside ours is silent.
When we finish our gallons it is almost dark. My father crosses the lawn,
Rings the widow's doorbell. I can't read yes or no in her face.
My mother calls us for dinner. My father takes his baskets and dogs,
Heads into the widow's yard.

photograph by Eddie McHugh

Noctuidae

2009-11-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

I. Flame Shoulder

Summer has rolled over
to the damp sheets of August.
The girl with the flame shoulder
starts over, as she must.

II. Heart and Dart

Then one right after another,
he dropped them in the stream:
the flame girl's heart, his broken dart,
and two swift-sinking dreams.

III. True Lover's Knot

In winter, water all is dark
And dreams sleep, muddy, caught;
her bed is cold, his fingers numb
in stiff true lover's knots.

photograph by André Felipe de Medeiros

For Keeps

2009-11-08T17:07:00.000-08:00

"You want me to hurt you. You're
asking me to hurt you. To cut you so deep
it leaves a mark?"
The sunlight is clear but far away.
"A gash," he says, and clutches his ribs.
The trees blow kisses. He stops walking.
She is five paces ahead
before she notices.

She kicks a chunk of broken sidewalk.
Dried maple leaves scrape
across the tops of her shoes. Light
through her ring makes rubies
on the pavement.

photograph by Rob Hodnett

The Sundays

2009-11-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

Sometimes he'd wake mid-morning and know;
some weeks it wouldn't set in til the sun did.
But weekly, every
seven
days
the needles found him,
pinched, poked, pulled
his drylip corners
down, down toward the Earth.

She kept to herself
on Sundays, and read
like a prayer the letter
he wrote on every
Friday
night:
This isn't me. I love you.

photograph by flickr user Tanya

Pallas Athene

2009-10-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

Here where the marble toes
Crumble, a temple. Can you see it?
Hundreds and hundreds of years ago,
Before these streets had stones.

She was a great beauty,
This Pallas Athene, not unlike your grandmother
In her own way.
When first they brought Athene here
She was a perfect picture of war;
Seabirds did not dare land on her.

Look at her now. See that white tear?
This is the rain of ages appearing.
But look, my daughter,
At the wind-worn face:
Time has smoothed the chiseled cheeks;
Her eyes are soft as Aphrodite's.

photo courtesy of P at What Possessed Me.

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

2009-10-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

Poppies in October

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly ----

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 - February 11, 1963)
photograph by flickr user scheithelapeyre

When the Witch Ball Breaks

2009-10-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

When the ball breaks a fox
finds your best layer and the baby cries
with shining splinters you can't find.

When the ball breaks your shoes
are dusted with powdered glass.
Every step is a challenge
to the feet you have toughened all summer.

When the ball breaks
the window has broken with it.
One wall is gone.
You sleep at the neighbors'.

photograph by Ian Mackenzie
more about witch balls here

With a Glance at the Equator

2009-10-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

If I am a world then the climate
is rapidly changing.

Gone now is the dodo,
gone druids, unicorns.
My coats tire of warning away
the full fire of the cosmos.

Through patches and holes
I am singed and boiled.
One of these days I will face
the sinking sun himself.

Continents drift without my permission.
There are tracks in the sea;
the great plates ride
on sandy rails
of unknown origin.
Who is he, this engineer who charts
where my heart will settle?

Icebergs bob like battleships
atop the warming ocean. Their sheer
hulls melt : cool water swells
to wash my white-hot belly.

photograph by Farley Vaughan

Off Bittersweet Road

2009-10-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

You catch a fox's eye. You are both caught,
Breathing hard, unsteady still
With the momentum of where you've been.
Eye and eye: both colored in hard sunlight
But black stones under these clouds.

One field away the grasses tangle
In damp electric winds. Lightning soon,
Mud underfoot, but you are paralyzed.
A lock of hair tumbles across your face.

You do not blink, can see
Through the strands to know
The fox is still there. Then, behind you--
A crack of light splits a dry oak limb

From its body. Nature's arbiter
Has called it a draw.
You don't have to turn around
To know the fox is gone.

photograph by Shawn

The First Man to See Jupiter

2009-10-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

"Tall as the sky, with a beard
mountains could get lost in. Blue,"

the first man stammered, "Did I mention
he's blue? And for one second the whole
ocean stopped to listen, and he looked my way
and he winked. I can't believe

you missed it."

photograph by flickr user miuvincent

Lady Suo's Clavicle: A Corollary

2009-09-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

after Lady Suo (11th-12th cent.)

That early fall night
When I woke to find
Your sleeping cheek (warm weight
On my shoulder) may never
Have happened,
But the dream is nearly enough.

photograph by Ani Eleuterio

Interlude: Other People's Poetry, Inappropriately Timed Haiku Edition

2009-09-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

That spring night I spent
Pillowed on your arm
Never really happened
Except in a dream.
Unfortunately I am
Talked about anyway.

-Lady Suo (11th-12th cent.), tr. Kenneth Rexroth.
One of my favorite poems in every season.

To the Girl I Was When I Bought This Book

2009-09-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

The easy thing would be
to hate you: the smear
of your dull pencil is enough
to sigh my breathing.
You printed your name,

careful and proud, believing
you'd want it forever. I know
this book is brittle
from an avalanche of tissues. I know
you wanted blackberries

but planted only thorns.
These pages are stretched, bowed and tired,
this spine is nearly surrendered.
The hard part--and this
you even know--is arriving

at the endpapers, where (you
know) I will forgive you.

photograph by Signora Oriente

Overtired, She Suddenly Understands the Obvious.

2009-09-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

The moon is only ever full;
the absence we see
is mere shadow.

To Aristotle

2009-09-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

Philosopher, you cannot know
the lengths that we have gone to.
From your home in our lungs,
our lashes, the clouds, the spiders,
the ever-bleeding maples,
it all must seem easy,
like breathing.

photograph by norisons

Homo Ridens

2009-09-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about...and that was the beginning of fairies." J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan and Wendy

And what was there to laugh about,
in this prehistoric night? Would the sound echo,
or would the black's nap suck it up
like so much spilled champagne?
And who was it that came along next,
and lifted the star-clad child?
Some vast nurse, who waltzing, swaying,
lullaby muttering, said,

Baby, it's not that funny.

photograph by Tamera

(Not) Gone...

2009-09-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

...Just checking in. I hope everyone is well out there in the ether. I've been completely devoid of any creative spark lately. Am I the only one? Is it astrological? Astronomical? Barometric pressure? Your guess is as good as mine.

In any case, I've joined a writing exchange and with luck that will prod me into my old, incessantly spewing self.

Can you believe summer is gone? It seems like a year has gone by these past three months.

photograph by Cari Ann Wayman

To the Wizard of Menlo Park

2009-09-01T17:45:00.001-07:00

You should know it doesn’t count
If you cheated, and you should know
We know you did. Who but a time traveler
Would sweat until the filament formed;
Who but the one who has known silver dawn
Would bother to burgle one trip
To the moon? There is no sport
To this brilliance. Your fizzing chariot
Awaits in the alley:
Be gone, and leave us our fire.

more on alleged intellectual poacher Thomas Alva Edison here
watch "Le Voyage dans la Lune" here

The Last Time I Saw My Sister

2009-08-22T20:35:00.001-07:00

There were so many things I wanted
to know. What it means, exactly,
to breathe another in. How it feels
to drown. We all

Had questions for her, admonitions,
pleas. We came with salvation,
the crooked blade
our father sent. We had traversed

The shadows of slow whales
to reach her, but like all lovers,
she misunderstood.

painting: The Sea Maidens by Evelyn de Morgan

Commute

2009-08-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

The Volvo stops a few feet shy
of the crosswalk, the stop line,
the cracked door in the pavement.

Perpendicular to this drive, from the lawn
of the still-dark People's Bank, the ducks
head off to the marsh.

A young female stretches. She yawns, practically
pajama-clad in the entirety of her waking.

Her sister sits on all the good grass,
and she will not be moved.

A nip from somebody's mother
just as the light turns green,
and the brown birds pack up their night.

photograph by John Hanam

The Widower Speaks

2009-07-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

Appoint not the silence
as thy messenger:

One cannot predict
how much it will say.

photograph by Piotr Zgodziński

Interlude: Other People's Poetry

2009-07-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

JULIET:
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging; such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaways' eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties: or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night.--Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night;--come, Romeo;--come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than snow upon a raven's back.
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Wm. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 2
Photograph by Elia Cherici

My Father Dropped Me

2009-07-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

When I was ten, we were dancing; I dipped
and he let go. That short fall broke three of my toes:
cold crutches in the winter, a cast across
icy steps. As these things do

the bones grew in
crooked, each node an accusation,
each weakness a knowing nod. Last year
the x-rays showed exactly what

needed to be done. In an ice storm
this March I clenched my teeth, watched
as my own hands rebroke those bones.

photograph ©Laura Kicey

Ode Upon the Poem I Can't Remember

2009-07-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

Horse. There was a horse,
and a tall girl also. I want to say one blue eye,
one green, but maybe that was the horse?
He broke her heart--the poet, that is,
broke the girl's heart,
not the horse's. I think.
It all comes in sepia flashes,
as though I'm the one writing it.

A rusted car is parked and stuck
armpit-high in the meadow; abandoned
or occupied I can't tell.
Blonde grass; a sheepish kiss
in porchlight before
she creeps in after curfew.

photograph by Rico Moran.
Does anyone have any idea what this poem is? I'm starting to believe I dreamt it, but my dreams are never this well-composed or meaningful.

The Axis

2009-07-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

White moths have crept through the cracks
in the window screens and now they trace
dizzy spirals over my snowdrift comforter. Up
to the lights in the high ceiling, down again,
dazed, disoriented, more in love than ever
with what they believe is the moon.

photograph by Paul Tyler

The Young Poetess Is Misunderstood

2009-07-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

"It's such a shame," she thinks, "that in
Their long lives and studies They
Have not known great art."

But, her villanelles remind her,
nobody who is truly great
Is ever understood in her time.

Better to wait, muse the elegies, until
The hundred-year anniversary
Of your death: see what They think then.

By then, Mistress, you will be so fine, so carved
Of stars and draped in ribbons that even They
Will smile.

Early Fireworks

2009-07-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

We named an entire forest of treetops,
Their heads bursting into life, then
Fading out fast like the faces
Of movie stars. Layered, stacked, three
Skies’ worth of foliage, painted
In the disappearing ink of gunpowder and flame.
We saw a shower of dogwoods, petals
Popping into bloom.
You pointed at the branches
Of the heavenly apple tree.

And every so often,
Like a fast-repeating New Year’s Eve
Or the rebirth of the Buddha--
The trailing golden arms
Of the God-sized weeping willow,
The same revelation every time.

photograph by Rob and Briony

Where the Burberry Went

2009-06-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

There are some things you just can’t hold on to:
The keys to the shed, the keys to the car,
The king of clubs in the Bicycle deck.

The cold clouds of Spokane traveled
Cross-country to find you, but an umbrella? No.
There are some things you can’t hold on to.

Your birth certificate is gone again;
You ask her where you left it. It’s just
One of those things you can’t hold on to.

And when she does not answer, and shrugs
Into your best raincoat and leaves
The screen door open, it is to you to realize:
There are things you can’t hold on to.

photograph by Suzanne

Atop the Upright

2009-06-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

A lucite carousel of photos, always flipped
To my grandfather laughing on his birthday.

In the smallest corner, the fat white star
Of a toddler's reaching hand. The edge

Of my mother's brown shoe. And, like comets,
The eyes of all, drawn to my grandfather laughing.

On the edge near the table, one wooden elephant,
One half of a set, one yellowed tusk gone.

photograph by Trey Lominack
What was on top of your family's piano?