Poems
Riddle
What large mysteries roamed the house.
What creatures sang by the hearth, arms and legs rocking.
Whose flesh fed you, whose hands lifted you
when voices chorused inside.
Who revealed your name. Who said, this is your food,
this is how we drink. Whose look stirred you, sly turn
over a shoulder, the side-eye. Whose kiss assuaged you
after long drought.
Whose body imprinted you. Who planted flags,
claimed territory, subjugated natives. What did the natives know.
How did the language evolve to hushed intonation,
sharp-click of tongue.
Whose rules mimed the cadence of gods.
What flawed histories seduced you. Why did no one
unravel the codes.
Who dropped the silk thread out the door,
down the sidewalk as you left for parts unknown,
explorer and refugee. Who made sure you’d return.
How did they tether you. Who were they really.
from 32 poems
A few poems that appear online:
The Cortland Review: “Incantation After the Storm”
The Hunger: “Messenger”
Cumberland Poetry Review: “January”
Cumberland Poetry Review: “In Thrall”
New England Review: “A Brief History of Rejection”
New England Review: “Once I Saw a Great Blue Heron”
DMQ Review: "Vanishing Acts”
DMQ Review: “Lunacy”
On The Sea Wall: “Autobio in Scent Memory”, “Post Haste”
The Rupture: “Code, Clue, Undercurrent”
January
Time to practice. Midwinter, your heart’s clock
slows down. Your eye won’t labor for small treasures,
ignoring the velvety depth of gray, fretwork
of branches against the sky. It’s easy to open up in April,
young sun, one blooming thing after another
until you forget the casualties. And October’s feast,
showers of red on the street, gold on the table.
Now chilled bursts of air cuff your face
and you say January’s a brutalist. I say, a master class.
Out of the numbed-down life. Live at a child’s pace,
dream in the languid streams of raw light.
Sprays of berries drape winter greens.
They won’t last long. Neither do we for that matter.
But for a minute, be a fledgling in a breath-stopping
world. I’m not brave, just imagine wilder places,
as if I might actually go. Like the Arctic north,
stripped of illusion. It could undo the schooling
to brush off extinction, whether we survive this world.
No remorse, it kills with unbearable beauty.
- from Leave Me a Little Want