He Tells Me That Would Never Happen
When it happens,it happens into doorstepsleading to another chamberof the throat Last words laughing,their sets of keys janglingas I try kicking down the doorto their empty, empty rooms.
Anchor
I recognized the speaker at the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a man wearing a motorcycle jacket and a bandana. The memory has mostly faded, but I can still see him standing in that jacket, his hands pressing his sides from inside those pockets. My friend Michelle and I sat on folding chairs behind other people in that shadowy room. Motorcycle Jacket… Read more →
a tulip (the only thing)
you traced purple curve & long stem color extended from you— dyed the room. we dove in what i wished on- to wished in- to occurred, first i / the tulip we read together: be(d)side eyes wide, warriors&warriors where we reside, we felt / the tulip grow through.
The Ball
Two balls on the kitchen counter, one blue, the other a strange tangerine floral, the third was missing. I’d seen it just half an hour ago, a multicoloured orb that mystified the eye. What colour was it, Joey? I searched piles of wrapping, other toys splayed across the mid-winter living room post-birthday mess, nothing. Anger furnaced my mind, guts, my… Read more →
bus in which I sit
through the window, a tan quilt drapes over a sleeping giant’s body. the arc of a jutting foot, a calf. & another calf, dribbling milk at its mother’s pouch. were the ladder angled differently, the cows could reach the treetops to hide from nomenclature & its maker. invite, too, the centipede, the sparrow, the lady with the little machine. don’t… Read more →
Convergence
“We do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”–John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley I know the Montana sky. A cyanic canopy stretching beyond beyond. Open country. I’ve been lost and found beneath that sky. I’ve slept under it, made love under it, rode horseback under it, cooked campfire steak under it, but I’m always overwhelmed by it. That sky… Read more →
when the pilot lies
The whale jaw was a conundrumafter a while we couldn’t sleepbeyond the growth of kelp elmthose days we wore green, killedtime by the front windows, lungsweren’t visible yet, the flesh stillconnected to the body, grapefruiteyes missing, nights you went withyour raw thigh wound bandagedtight in the forehead from a lanternof a headache, you bit your lipsand cursed the town for… Read more →
I’m A Pro
On the train ride home, I fall asleep and dream of eagles taking over the farm where I grew up, letting the cows loose and they roam. My family evacuates our home, and then we’re riding past a brushfire in a convertible bus until there is a roadblock. Peach trees talk to me, saying, Find your way. Bristlecone trees wave,… Read more →
A Mother’s Plea
Please don’t photograph. The cold feetof my baby withered blue petals. I will rub her feet and tickle her ghungroo*—she may open her eyes. I will part her mouth, feed her halwa—she may ask for more. No, I will let her sleep so vultures won’t follow her to heaven.Please don’t photograph; flashes will wake her. Sleep, my baby, sleep. *a… Read more →