In the Wake
I. My lullaby is the rumble of trucks as they cut through the town on their way to anywhere else. This is not a destination. II. The horizon is an impassive witness. The brow of a hill, the curve of a road framed by firs. It watches you as you go about your daily business,…
Read MoreTwo Poems: Preoccupation; San Andreas
Preoccupation I have laughed, looking at the San Juans, remembering the darkstories one shares when phone lines are down,the mirrors draped in black. The way one confession draws out another,beyond what any priest could stand, broughtinto the light of comfortable chairs. Too many important funerals have been missedor never held. Loss has formed a crematorium,all…
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Shadows The mermaids chase the shadows, billows of black under the rim of coral, the bellies of barges, the meandering hands of kelp. They call the shadow Desire for the boy in ripped jeans. They call it, Forbidden foods. They call it, What is killing you. They roll through the shadows that print the waves.…
Read MoreLittle Pink Hatchling
At twenty, I had graduated from college, moved to Manhattan and gotten a job selling all natural Italian ices from a pushcart. Each morning at the Jane Street depot, we packed carts with blocks of dry ice and big buckets of watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, and lemon ices—seeds and all. Our boss, Larry, assigned us a…
Read MoreUntitled Collages from 1975
Loneliness
Excerpted from The Big Dream (Biblioasis, 2011) The chief financial officer had something going on with one of the senior marketing managers. The fact that no one knew did not make the situation exactly comfortable for either of them, but it did make it manageable. They managed to smile pleasantly at each other over Styrofoam coffee…
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We Are Surprised Now, we take the mooninto the middle of our brains so we look like roadside stray catswith bright flashlight-white eyes in our faces, but no real ideasof when or where to run. We linger on the field’s green edgeand say, Someday son, none of this will be yours. Miracles are all around.We’re…
Read MoreMean Mail
I will call her Mary. Of course, even all these months later, I do remember her real name. I remember it as clearly as I do the words she used to describe me: “sham,” “self-absorbed,” “selfish,” and “failure.” I remember reading those words with my heart pounding, my hands shaking, my mouth going dry. I…
Read MoreTwo Poems: The Locked Closet; The Other Other Country
The Locked Closet Being clothed we shall not be found naked. ~II Corinthians In shadowed ranks, the suitcases huddled,dozens of them—rusty leather satchels, alligator grips, Gladstone bags with worn labels of European hotels.Some of the cases had burst open, exhausted by the wait. Others had been forced to yield their secrets, disgorgingflowered tea-dresses of some…
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