Poetry
Dear Black Barbie
I made you fuck my white Barbie even though I knew you didn’t want to. There were no whips or chains,this was a different kind of plantation fantasy. I didn’t have a Ken doll, so I made you the man. Not knowing what fucking looked like I just rubbed you against each other and made you kiss. I kept you …
Chicken Soup
for Joanna Ruth Bock Instead of your soup I picked us up a six-pack to split. But since you’re six hundredmiles away I guess I’ll drink yours too and hopeyou catch a vicarious buzz through the poem.Here’s to your health. Hey, I’m trying to make this warm and easy on the throat. Fun fact: did you know that …
Returned
for Giuliana Sgrena, Italian journalist, kidnapped in Iraq, 2005 You were trying to tell their story. Why else would you be there in that desert of bullets and covered women so far from Rome, pillars and pressed olives, cheap wine, your communist lover? You were there to tell the story of the weak, the dispossessed, …
Salmon Summers
The fishermen’s wivesdon’t have to worry aboutmen chasing tail. Two monthson the boat and the men havegone electric. That’s whatthe vets call it aftera few seasons of catchingsalmon runs. Even thegreenhorn kid gets it.By week three of summertheir bodies are programmable,minds disconnected from spineslike chickens scurrying minutesafter their heads are lopped off. There’s no place for …
Scott, Supervisor of the Dispossessed
for Scott Wiener, San Francisco Supervisor, District 8 I know this cityits namesake friarthe mystic who bled, Scott 800 years beforeall this cement& scaffolding we know the birdsin his namethe visions what to dowith this historythis minority who nowdoes the city claimas progeny the longhaired boysmelling of patchoulihis hemp spread out Nick the Wiccanin an open relationshiphis desiderata of dick pregnant Alexandraher architect …
When My Phone Trembles (for D’Angelo)
When my phoneTremblesAfter midnightI never think of good news: Someone’s birthday An overseas friend Forgetting The Time difference I never smell Apples baking Or …
The Beginning of the End of Hummingbird Cake
In the pineapple is the fiber we’ve been looking for, the sweet yellow threadiness we’d never confuse for stitches, for wound. In the banana is the quickening rot, the rot being the softest, sweetest stage of the fruit. *This is not Hawaii. There are no resorts here. We swim in no ocean but in One …
Street Dog Dreams: Lodhi Gardens
all nightshe dreams of gold jewelryburying her aliveand fine fine silksthat smell so sharply of fearher teeth ache then when the humans comeclattering their feetin the yellow squares of lighttheir breath heavy with desireand sweet smoke she wants to tell themwho she wasbut the man whistles so loudlyshe forgets everythingand barks at the moon
Dry Spell
La chicharra, Spanish for ‘‘cicada,’’trills with not one but two rolling r’slike the charlado who won’t stoptalking because he has too much to say. Fallen dead on the sidewalk, though,his song is hushed, a shell emptied out,carapace of silence, once a chorus,lacelike wings enfolded, mute supplicant. Shell fired in terra cotta, ashen undercarriage,pale green wing …