I took back my college reading list, hid from Tom behind a crispy Tristam Shandy, unread but bookmarked with a yellowed Dear John, an opera played upon a Sahara of pages foxed by dribbled Scotch. So much depends on expectation, to sing for supper, to sleep fat after long affectations dull their edges. We’ll defend... Continue Reading →

Dying in a pandemic, Let me count the ways:   The solitude inside our cocoons Softens but never loses its edges. No human contact robs us of our humanity. The fears of disease buzzes in our heads As we stare at death a thousand times a day.   Fear of breathing, Fear of someone’s particulate,... Continue Reading →

My suffering is not unique. I feel the need to repeat  this refrain since I’m writing another poem   about my brain. My brain is not unique either— but it might be the first  brain of its kind that you see opened, pink and screaming, turned inside out on the table.  The organ is delicate when... Continue Reading →

The dark place where these words come from and all the other ones; this bottomless well of emptiness, this black pit with no sound or sight or smell. I pluck the words from there like grapes from a vine and I don’t know how they got there or why I’m the one chosen to retrieve... Continue Reading →

When saddled with sadness let it not whelm you. See it like a shipment: that is meant to move away.   There is beauty in grief if one allows oneself to spot it. It contextualizes the concert. This soups it up.   Gloom is good. It sanitizes the surroundings. A raft of seen and unseen... Continue Reading →

The sun drops and its cooling light strains for groveling clouds a tree out front stands with hunched shoulders evening wind shuddering the leaves with the grief of the day a sad susurrus rustle, quieter than glacier mice migrating towards the brink as you trace my skin with a lighter hand than I thought possible... Continue Reading →

Mission San Juan Capistrano                                      —for Carolyn Porter    One    Solstice light came at me like a memory  As I walked out through the chapel doors  Away from the darkness of its gold    Into the midmorning rich and silent air.  There were no schoolchildren touring there  But the problem still lay heavy on me ... Continue Reading →

God is in your closed eyes, when your mouth rests on mine. I taste his longing to escape, but all I can give him is my own prison.   God is in the absence of your touch as your hand releases my shoulder leaving chills of a confused zephyr on my skin.   God is... Continue Reading →

Lost, wandering the dark paths of my empty soul, Suspended between earth and paradise, With this sharp pain and dreams beyond my control, My thoughts of you like silent stars arise, The only light I see it’s in your eyes, The only sound I hear is from your laughter, and from the love’s arrow that... Continue Reading →

I had never been to the seaside. I knew what to expect, though. I had a book about it. There were lots of pictures of rock pools and the strange creatures living there. My favourites were the hermit crabs. I was looking forward to those the most. I had a little bucket to collect them... Continue Reading →