The glass on my front window is frosted up, so I don’t know if my wife is trying to watch me while I use the shovel to push slush off the front walk. There’s a house sparrow in the branches of one of my bushes, but he’s not watching me either. I think there are... Continue Reading →

If I were the sky, I would wait for you to rise, to feel your soft and tender lips kissing my eyes. I am just the earth, and when you rise, I feel the pain, I turn to dust and cry. If I were a composer, I would write musical notes in a bouquet, and... Continue Reading →

Silence swells the night. I listen for my father’s voice and wait for streetlights to blink on and off, dead bulbs to blaze as I approach. The moon has spoken to me. This autumn—one death, two deaths, three, four. My memory balks, refusing to expose the numbers lining up, the ones I know, the ones... Continue Reading →

Men and women gather again In the midst of their frenzy Incessantly chasing the ghost That once they looked at with envy They wake up intermittently as if in a delirium Running bare like wild horses at dusk A desolate wind blows like a first lust Until they settle at the edge of deliverance Photographs... Continue Reading →

A clattering sound made me twitch back to see it even though I’d been turning away, but it turned out to be the rod clattering slightly in the towel rack, a sound like the clattering of dishes when the children are jumping, which reminded me of the earthquake, a small one, that rattled the china... Continue Reading →

I dreamed my love had found me my children gathered too put down all their weapons eased their hearts cried their fill then they began to play like they did when they were young and when I woke I’d forgotten all my dreaming days were done. I went down to make the coffee sat by... Continue Reading →

I eye the thin stretch of fabric between my legs. I am just eleven years old, but there it is. Silent tears fall. I have used all the rolls of toilet paper But the red doesn’t stop. I hug myself there in the bathroom until Heavy pounding shakes the door. I stand swiftly and pull... Continue Reading →

I listened to your rantings for so long I began to think they were my own, Indistinguishable—the self from the other, So the chase was set, the escape inevitable. To be locked inside a tirade Changes the poles on your compass— Let loose in too many directions is Just as bad as being stuck, immobile,... Continue Reading →

I heard the haunting voice of the western screech owl like a human voice shrieking through the dark puzzled thunder of night, it awakened my fretting mind, and illuminated my ebony memories. The voice, like rain pouring through the gaps in the weary hours of the night caused me to contemplate the absurdity, of my... Continue Reading →

I didn’t silence easily, not even as a child I spoke first and listened later to the embarrassed laughter or pourings of outrage from adult mouths. I resisted my mother’s attempts to quieten me, I knew it would ruin me, arrest my development, curtail my growth, my flowering. So I was ready for you when... Continue Reading →