Category: Poetry

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

about fog; tiny liquid droplets hanging in the air, the same air which hangs your thought likea crystal where you left it but it’s also about an invention I’ve been thinking about lately, aninverted furnace of sorts, so that heat and fear goes in and a cool draft of whatever theopposite is comes out. Before…

The long drought mocked of my intent To channel the nonexistent, flowing stream.Still, imagining the farmer, the collapsing bridgeHe built for his herd to cross overWhat must have been a muddy mire, Summoned an inner need to prepare.I bought a culvert at the local hardware store,The aproned man said could “conduct a downpour.”Leaning into its…