Poetry
The Creation
Woman was made so clothes would have somethingto wear. So shoes would find company, hair, finely braided, hanging down the shoulders of anunloose woman. A tight-fitting skirt, finding knees Some lappa suit, carved out of unyielding things.Stiff fingers, sewing and sewing, until fabric attaches itself to permanent skin. All the lost hoursand lost sleep, just …
Pelvis with Distance
(Georgia O’Keefe, 1943) Bone and sky:I waited my whole life to be naked Not nude,which means unclothed for the educated,self-deluding eye— that’s not naked,that was putting on clothes of the character I playedto stir the camera’s sighs (a boy’s hips, a boat’s ribs,Breasts like apricots, a coarse curtain of hairto pull or hide behind) while …
Dear Letter
For mother 1.I am writing to tell youthat the burninghas begun. 2.Although it is still cold at night,the lemon treeoutside the kitchen dooralready has white blossoms. 3.Yesterdayon the freewaydriving backI rode over a small buck. 4.Smoke from the firesfilled the inside of my car,even with all the windowstightly shut. 5.There was a small dambeside the …
The Liberal Arts
In mathematics they say the most beautiful solution is the correct oneIn physics they say everything that can happen must happenIn history they say the more it changes the more it is the same In astrophysics you take the long viewIn chemistry you explode and blend, it is a bit like freestyle cooking, the Yiddish …
Oil and Myrrh
How she’d never hear the sound of her own humming There would be musicmade only from machinesthe monotone piercingan electronic originationnot from the hands of humansor the skins of animals In the name of the Father We tell ourselves differentlybut there are only two worlds She could not take the same breath we taketo recreate …
The Interview
I shuffe past the school’sfortified metal. Guards frisk me as I approach, ask me to leavemy name, phone number, time of day; why I’m here in a book.I think default procedure. Maybe, I’m heartenedby their arm’s gesture, how not one pats me down;says, this way, madam. Maybe this is the way a mind deadensto what …
Dad 3
Stories my dad told me, but I could never figure outwhich ones. All mixed up for a kid like me, wide-eyed, sleepy head.Some Southern dialect from Puglia mostly;a rugged countrysidedotted with confino ghosts,scarred memories,reporting each morning il posto di polizia,and then the day was yours basking in the sunof your morning …
Ode to the Penis
Someone told me that what I writeabout men is objectifying. So I ask you,O general idea of the penis, do you mindbeing noticed? You who stand, in the mind—erect and not, old and young—for all your representations, O abstractprinciple, haven’t you maybe beenwaiting for your turn to be sung? I thinkyou’re lovely and brave, and …
Lucky
I meant no disrespect to my body.Sleepless, I made my way to the outdoor showerhard rosebuds of insect bites rising. VitaminB, lavender oil, tea tree oil, Benadryl, nothing helped& nothing made me less of a feast to the predawnmosquitoes & fleas. Long ago I held a mesh bagseething w/ ladybugs, my first sense of wealth,all …