Category: Poetry
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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…
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Metal, a Love Poem
I come to steal you back from work as well as tell you dinner’s done—we made it through another day of work: amen. To cook a meal is work. Amen. To cook a meal for you is joy. Amen. As I chopped and fussed andstirred, I traced the arcsof stirrings past—this bluepot’s been host tostews,…
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“We all one day return to the kitchen of our childhood”
Guy Goffette, quoted in Poetry Nation Review, #277 Included in its original plan –a fireplace, raised brick where one could sit, back to the flames. The low, near cupboard held no shelving, only space for what the yard offered from pruning, storm loss, rot – cherrywood one year, birch another – that and cordwood purchased and stacked…
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The Traditional 20th Anniversary Gift is China
So I’m giving you this poem instead. It is not fragile. There’s no need to update the kitchenware we’ve been scavenging from thrift stores since long before day one, replacing what gets worn down only when we have room in the cupboard to do so. No registry! your grandmother kept saying, No registry! as if…
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Caesura
The evening speaks itsninety-seven languages of silence all at once,quite the cacophonyfor ears used to hearing just a fistful of noise, footfall, door slam,somebody swearing at a busstop while the beast exhalesits sigh, loud as an explosion.No, this caesura weaves youforward and backfrom thread to thread, polyphonies of humall the world’s not-speaking,choirs of mouths that…
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In Mexico, Kind Of
The body wants to swimthe cenotes, where long agosomeone either very wise or equally foolishwould have offered a sacrificeto appease one god or another,to cement his place in some kind of heavenor just stay firmly planted hereand be fed. The bodyonly works for profit. There was a timeI can remember nowwhen all the days were…
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Radishes
A single diaphonous breath, entrusted to the tides,dodges ships and sharks, pollution and phantom-like jellyfish.Reaching land, it runs many miles through the aquifiers,beneath rocky canyons and verdant fields.Turned to steam, it will rise up through some subway grate to surprise you in Tucker Square, where you are contemplating radishes.You will feel it on your cheek,…