The Churches of Rhodes
She found these men in long coats strange, their closed faces, their tall and silent lines counterpoised her missionary stock. Across the Aegean, the Turkish mainland might be imagined a hundred years ago, sailing vessels coming into port, a girl of thirteen, bred on the bible at distances the Word could go, and on the tongues of a million foreign… Read more →
Portrait of Enya at the Circus
The spotlights have converged. The acrobats have been led into the ring. The lions have been corseted, the children’s mouths torn open, the music released to its deafening work and Enya has given her handlers the slip. Her cage is empty, her dinner of chocolate and red wine untouched. The bars have been bent into the shape of a dove…. Read more →
Twenty Tiny Elegies for the Girl Who Fell from the High Bridge
You were born during an ice storm in Colorado, two years and one day after your sister. We moved to Arizona. You stayed small a long time and I wore you on my hip. I must not say I lost They tell me to say you are dead. When I took you and your sister to the supermarket, sad-eyed… Read more →
Reverse Burial
Remember when you pulled back the hood of your car and there was a garden? No, there was only your myocardial infarction and I-75 extending onwards until it flooded with neon lights and incinerated itself. But, let’s get out and stretch limbs and lungs wide, jumping over moonroofs into a campground in the backcountry. Take out the body bag and… Read more →
Panegyric Against Abstinence
from loss. From holding so closely that one’s chest is red as the other’s and heavy with short breath, from which to pull away one is wet with the tears cried by the other at the thought of the pulling away; from which the idea can be extrapolated that this is it: the place where one has come to be… Read more →
Somewhere in Kansas
What I keep hoping is that words are like boomerangs and come back, or that he will fall into his own trap; I keep hoping to see a hand (just a hand) writing on the wall; I want the people to see he has no clothes, and most of all I want some little dog to pull aside the… Read more →
Portrait of Enya with Bow, Quiver, Arrows
Enya descends her mountain on the equinox. She carries a quiver, a bow, a handful of arrows. She is hunting shadows, tonight so scarce and therefore so valuable, her calculations precise when it comes to supply and demand. Her footsteps are silent, her bowstring pulled taut, her body like smoke or water, rarely in the shape of a woman. She… Read more →