As doctors talks of Mother’s health degrade from bad to worse, I hear the words, but they don’t stay, they fly right out the window. I stick my sorry, soggy brain into a plastic bag, and stuff it in the freezer until it comprehends it must accept the winds of chaos. Photo by RF._.studio on... Continue Reading →

(to my granddaughter Athena) Just a lump upon my lap now, you will one day watch me dying. You’ll be sad, but not too much, I hope. Your first lesson in grief, I’ll be an easy one. It will get harder. So starting now while I am nothing but a shadow in your eyes, I’ll... Continue Reading →

Frowsty recall akin an unattended cadaver freights me to the edge of our ending when wretchedness spread its wings on runway of reactions: Like the last breath in an ailing body sometimes takes too long to conclude its cycle, we waited full of weltschmerz for the by-blow to our flight. About the Poet: Sanjeev Sethi has... Continue Reading →

I waited for you sixteen years, spurned the quiet, easy lover to crouch low from gunshots in the park at night, scratching at the grime for what I knew was there but seldom found. And you, aware my heart was always one step back, tensed away from me. Today, the bodega on the corner is... Continue Reading →

During the last Christmas, the girl, now woman, slept in her childhood bed. Outside,wind sculpted drifts into a frozen white sea, the crests rising and toppling. Far underneathwere small animals, hibernating in a quiet world.In her own sleep, someone she knew was decorating the bed with small, brilliant lights,the brightest stars in our galaxy. She... Continue Reading →

Ours was a collision of dreamsMe and my roundabout boy.I used to ask him,Is your universe beneath the waterOr above the clouds orOnly in your mind?Who cared anyway?He was my rainbow man.His smell rubbed into my blood.He was walking backwards when we metAnd I asked him,Whose baby are you? andWon't you be mine?He said, I... Continue Reading →

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 →