Poetry
Comptrollers
Morning after the twentieth anniversary of environemental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa's murder Did you just say why do the heathens rage? My head is a woven reed of traffic lawsbut my legs on the pedals seem to be sayingtoday is not the day. Perched as I am on this wheel, slantingthrough the streets like a swift …
Crush
Why do they call it ‘‘crush’’?The man strapped in horizontal on the hydraulic lift, then tipped vertical,bellowing, I am standing up. The nurses trying to cantileverhim into the bathroom so he can brush his teeth.Greg described my dad’s menu as ‘‘mechanically softened.’’They actually take the entire rib-eye steak, or chicken parmigiana,and put it through a …
Bees, Honeycombs, Honey
Bees, thousands and thousands,surviving in a hiveunder the soffit; bees,honeycombs, and honey,and dampness, and old woodsticky in the sunlight; and the beekeeper’s hand,carefully, and slowly,vacuuming, and taking;the bees tumbling, gently,into the makeshift hive;honeybees, and honeycombs, and honey, glistening;honey, the only foodthat will not spoil; honey,pulled from the pyramids,still sticky, and sweet,thousands of years later; I …
Garter, Copper, Water
He’s my age, and for once in Wise, VirginiaI believe it: same confused complexion(baby pimples nose and chin,around the eyes first fine contrails scratchingvacant sky), same dislike to sitwhile others stand. Same no gold band.He’s clean: I like the way he preened todaybefore clinic, though he circles usmost warm days in oily T-shirts, mowingour field, …
In the Name of the Tongue
Come Sunday afternoon and I sat back hunchedin the car, thumbing my father’s Bible, the door slamming behind him, as though his gun had burst a nest of birds.I fingered the grime into my hair and sat rehearsing, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witnessThou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, my …
Consume
La poesía es como el pan, de todosRoque Dalton What Satsuma mandarins for Santo Niño, for my father’s sepia portrait and Our Lady of Grace, what altar’s dinuguan and steaming brown rice, rice rotting for vermin, cockroach crony sycophants to sate themselves, TV What bone broth elixir in Mason jars, what Whole Foods 100% raw organic …
Brink
I work small bones from the back of my mouthto my front teeth, pluck and drop themin a pile on a plastic plate. How easy it could be to golike this: cross-legged on the kitchen stool,mackerel flash-fried only a moment ago,an untongued bone fixed and final in my throat. After shattering a bottle of Shalimar …
The Bee’s Gospel
I enter a household wherein a woman uses stamps with blooms:zinnias, aster, primrose. She adorns envelopes,remembers her mother’s destroyed marigolds,and grieves for them again. At night a man puts his palm on her temple,then her crown, unfolding meadows,and every fruit and root.I sit on the headboard and wait for permission to enter.It is an expanding …
The Pepper King Returns
He listens to the tock of two clocks—neither are synched. The Pepper King does not know how to walk on ice:his boots slide with every fourth step or so. He is used to fine sand and root sledge,full of rock salt and shell piece. The soles of his feet are as thick as stale ends …