for Anne Sexton How to kill yourself this time You kept wondering in your Thorazine hazeNow after fifty years my once professoressaI am still afraid to write this You were my sad mother too Same age as MomWhile you were remaking Grimm Mom toured China’s bright new communisms But I did want to put my... Continue Reading →

Imagine the graphable shifts in your own self-civilization from proud, young hunter to calculating gatherer to steady cultivator: industrious over worker of your fragile inner child. And notice those thin but alarming layers in your sedimentary record, the relative moments indicating odd breakthroughs, beneficial mutations, weathered disasters— in my case, that sudden thaw of marital... Continue Reading →

shallow breathing filling a silence new to me to be drowned out by the heater kicking on when the house hits 61 degrees just how he likes it past days this breathing soothed me to sleep now holds me awake awaiting the last drawn breath I thought I heard 5 hours ago mistaken; relieved relieved... Continue Reading →

Something is wrong with the lights near the field. They flicker and burn like they’re groping for air. Their tumblers turn but the darkness won’t yield. We had to awake to dawn’s holy glare. It flowed from the hills like a river of stars. We braced for the chills so sharp in the air. I’m... Continue Reading →

The book belonged to my cousin. A relic of her childhood it was thick and heavy. Greek legends, she told me, myths and fantasies, gods and goddesses, not quite fairy stories and not many pictures, not enough to interest me, the eight year old me, so we both thought. But then it fell open and... Continue Reading →

I long to return to Bali, to the quiet that slipsthrough rice fields, mixes with offerings cupped in banana leaves, traced on templescool with moss and devotion, hovering in the scent of buried springs—whatever gaps in my soul are filled, at least for the time I standwith my forehead pressed against stones. It doesn’t matter... Continue Reading →

Tried to fill into all the crevices That showed up in Your cracks temporary hotspotsWhere we could seamlessly connectWithout changing networksOblivious to this roaming worldThis mapping of everything else, and then just, us.A subset that had a patternLike a diligent malleable liquid which was ductileversatile and adept, we wereGrout, fillers and then suturesSkin against skin,... Continue Reading →

I'm a lump on the dance floor a dreary particle to be plucked from your blouse and discarded while the sway of your hips flows to the hem of your skirt your long hair like a wave If I could I'd toss pearls of light at your feet to re-attract your attentionfrom the rainbow glowsticksas... Continue Reading →

There is a blessed monotony to breakfast,eating the same foods at the same time,more stable than anything else in our day,the capstone satisfaction to our ablutions,the reassuring and predictable tastesreinforcing order in the universe before launching into the day’s changing menus. About the Poet: Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence... Continue Reading →