Category: Poetry
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After Reading Chen Chen’s Race To The Tree
i ask if there was a time they felt sovulnerable they acted recklessly& though it’s our third month together i breakthe ice with my own ax, say how my middleschool crush liked me, too, though we neverspoke & how, at a dance, some friends madethe dj play a song just for us & i flednot…
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Kiawe
Nightfall shifts to indigo light. We ascendrealms of gods through ghost-branched kiawe.Not native to Hawaii. A dangerous intruder,Prosopis juliflora.Invasive and intertwined. Allbut impassable. You wooed me with night-hiking Makapu’u,up to the old lighthouse. Come with me and see—surf embracing O’ahu’s volcanic shoulder, urging the island north to bolder waters.Longing thorns tsk-tsk as we climb,scoring exposed…
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Because I’m Talking about Myself, I’m Talking about New York
After Joan Didion’s “Goodbye to All That” Not easy to see new beginnings here—morning sun making a quick pass by my airshaft,signaling rats to end their all-night party.A plastic lamp with a timer—sunrise simulation,bird chirps optional—lets me know it’s a new day,and today made the daffodils on my dresserexplode into a dozen magic wands.I picked…
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Photographer’s Model
Off to the city—waif,fragile pretzelwith a Gucci bagfilled with lipsticks for a change of facesto be a modelpotato chip thin,ribbon candy in the bull’s eye of a photographer’s lens,silk eyes, hollowed cheeks lashes thick as Japanese fans.She smilesafter skimping on a breakfast downtownwhen they deep freezeher youthon the glossy page of a fashion ad—waif,sugar wafer,crumblingin…
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Traffic at the Graveyard
There was traffic at the graveyardduring our hurry to the airport.And when we finally flewI looked down on Wall Street’s clay towersthat from high enough looked likethe tombstones from morning.And we flew even higher over suburbia andthe vinyl homes on their little green yardslooked like big bugs asleep on bladesof grassand the ocean with the…
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Hydrangeas
I don’t know what to saywhen my friend asks about work. This woman is a doctor who hotfootsstroke victims through the thrashing wings of an emergency room at midnight and then bikes home to make her childrenBelgian waffles. I pour cereal and write poems, duty-bound only to the slickness of milk and words…and still I run myself into the ground most days. How…
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Histories
Two afghans lie folded at the bottom edgeof the bed we share—they unravel gradually,pawed at by time and the dog’s nervousness,but they hang together still—I cannot recallwhen your late mother knitted and gifted them.Nights too cold for just the comforterI’d wrap the extra warmth around you,mounded beneath layers, hidden underthe distant mountain range of sleep,while…
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September 11th Blue
For Rosanna & Helen Leaden treading to an abundanturban garden after hearing ofyour unrelentingdiagnosis.Dead weight on a damp campusbench. Red fall blooms heavily bentbeneath a toweringblue sky.Facing a weathered September 11thstone; barren tomb with no bones,bronze columns of 39 fallen alum,unknown.Don’t jump.Don’t jump to concreteconclusionsI cry.Smoke pouringfrom shatteredeyes.Desperate hands graspinggray flightlessair.Still alive. Alive. Maureen Martinez…
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Bringing her back
Only his quick hands and blind heart keep faithfrom petrifying. Thoughts of her, flecks, slabberedin her turning, colour his act, giddy instabilitysteadied in two dimensions. Heartbreakswallowed with black black coffee to silt the childlike tremor of fear, waiting for tinctures’lifting, a lullaby of hope to help him sleepwalk through the shovelling out of love, dark…
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By the mimosa in the morning
Few things match sitting by the mimosa in the morning,with dogs and coffee and a journal for wandering.The bumblebees drift by,a slight hum in the air,weaving pink-white thread-flower to thread-flower.Catbirds and cardinals take sides in the tree,chattering from limb to limb.My journal and pens, wet with dew,wait for me to return from the mimosa,but I…