Poetry
Carmen
after Catullus Late snow today, and flower bulbsare already sending their fat shoots upthrough wet mulch along the sidewalk.Sparrows flit through the bushes,taunting me with their song of spring.I imagine how one would fit so perfectlyin the palm of my hand, how warmit would be. I’m tempted to believethe lies these birds sing, but I …
My New Friend
In a photograph, her father’s capis jaunty, his beard wild. A hooded falcon poses on his outstretched handand he is everything you want your father to be. My new friend doesn’t wear makeup.Her feet are tiny, tattooed. She’s broke, but spent a whole summer drivingthe craggy roads of Iceland. She says that in Reykjavík, they …
The way I always pictured ritual sacrifices
I wondered which would give in first,the old man carrying his fern or the ferncarried to the street the way I alwayspictured ritual sacrifices. Knees bent,he hunched above the curb long enoughfor the patience of gods to wear thin,taking in the uncertain abyss backing upthe storm drain and flooding the streetinches thick with muck. It …
Because you forgot me, I am weird in the world
Already I’ve changed—wallflower, paper flower,hidden and pressed. My mouth a thin-slotteddoor, an opening in the brush. Find the spoton my neck where the evil eye can leer unhindered. The forest crowds around meto stare, blank-eyed, free of conscience,those eyes see what I’ve become: a bride’snarrow fingers, my hair a bereft knot looking for solace. I …
Three Poems
HATTIE IN GREENWICH VILLAGE Why not sit quietly with them and trailYour smoke across the air as others do?For smoke is beautiful. Why such to-doWith scratching of your match? Your gestures fail,I say, to make your point. Those bred withinThese narrow stairs and crooked streets don't wearWith such éclat what your youth labelled sin.Your leering …
Shake the Dark Out
Underneath, there was an ancient musicI underestimated so you could be minus and postRomance in our soul of things trundling aroundOld truths but not believing. Luck-seeking,We pretended we were young, but we were onlyFreak-making love-taking strangersShining up our contemplations, building new homesProfoundly not our own. Alone, my trope, is thisLingering over your major promises in …
Electric Rococo Recollections of Jam Tree Gully from Afar
From the upper southeast windowthe cross on the church is stark—light-globes mark its outline, contrastthe twilit harbour. It wants moreout of symmetry than is on offer. Tomorrow, the Guru is going overto Jam Tree Gully to clear the guttersof dead, dry leaves. They congestwithout style, embellish with urge,the pragmatism of making a growthmedium: in summer …
Notes from Havana
1. Today the first rest in a long time: lolling on the bed in theAC, thinking of sitting & laughing at dinner on the Plaza Vieja withP & E their second night here, first lightning, then thunder,then rain—of P passed out after dinner another night & RA in theliving room teaching E to salsa, & …
Limpopo
What a croc. This riveris the crooked line betweenrand/dollar. Neither is ours.We cannot even afford our own money. This river has caughtthe national disease, hunger.This river playsthe national pastime, hunger, like a champion.This river wears ournational dress, hunger, like a string of hip-beads.This river teems withcrocodiles. We cannot afford to house them in a parkthese …