Coney Island, 2013
Szczebrzeszyn
Chrząszcz W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie I Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie. Wół go pyta: “Panie chrząszczu, Po cóż pan tak brzęczy w gąszczu?” Poem by Jan Brzechwa Cricket In the town of Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reeds And Szczebrzeszyn is famous for it. An ox asks him, “Mister Beetle, What are you buzzing for in… Read more →
Ab. Sin. The.
Ab 1) The English preposition of, denotes from, off, away, down as in the Elixor of Youth, as in wormwood grew on the path away from the Garden of Eden, as in the waters became those of wormwood and many men died off, as in the drink was sent down from Mars, warrior god, lover of Venus, son of Jupiter. 2) noun in the Syriac calendar, the last summer month, as in August, as in hot as hell. 3)… Read more →
Split
He kneels, hand on my sternum. I forget how soft you are, he says. After two days, I forget. To preserve – the inclination to. If I could have, I would’ve slipped away on thin legs, become invisible at the tree line. Nobody wants their life to become unrecognizable to them. I wanted. I wanted to go on wanting. Is it… Read more →
What I Learned in College
From those years came 2 tattoos, yours black, mine green. I was a shell of a girl, wore floral skirts pulled from overhead, took comfort in arranging things in rows or in circles, like the one you thought should go above my left ankle, that delicate bird-bone, that perfect hairless wasteland. And since I was no stranger to impermanence I let… Read more →
In Praise of Rivers
When packing bodies into cylindrical clothing, notice how pressures shape, arc with contentment, flow easily around corners bent happily into bulges. Bridges inscribe nothing: they sponsor only temporary conditions. What you want is to bend rivers at will, like bending planetary orbits and dumb meteors so hopelessly at the mercy of what is massive. What you do not want is… Read more →
Coney Island, 2013
Know Me
I was once the tree you hammered shims into so you could climb me like a ladder. And I was the new strawberry, larvae white and hard, and the bleeding-heart bush dropping valentines over your acreage. I was the fox on whom you did not pull the trigger, the air trapped beneath the frozen creek, and the broken milkweed’s white… Read more →
A Prayer in Flight
Lord take a semi and smash this red house of brick into smithereens so that there is only red dust and chunks. Construct a sycamore in its place. Bark molded out of clay, leaves snipped from the nylon skin of kites. Let it grow each year, gears biting, lifting, turning, shoving out the bark walls a millimeter each time. And… Read more →