Poetry
…et nihil mihi deerit.The living room is over-heated, like a gaping kitchen oven-door,Long past the payoff in savory odors resulting from bowls of color.The back parlor launches its many campaigns of hushed conversation.Sunlight glistens farewells …
The Black ArtA woman who writes feels too much, those trances and portents! As if cycles and children and islands weren’t enough; as if mourners and gossips and vegetables were never enough. She thinks she can warn the stars. A writer …
The Edges of TimeIt is at the edges that time thins. Time which had been dense and viscous as amber suspending intentions like bees unseizes them. A humming begins, apparently coming from stacks of put-off things or just in back. A racket of claims now, as time flattens. A glittering fan of …
Portrait of a BarmaidMetallic waves of people jar Through crackling green toward the barWhere on the tables chattering-whiteThe sharp drinks quarrel with the light.Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles,Shroud wooden faces in their wiles —Sometimes they …
If It Were MarchIf it were March—say, early March—a dayMuch more like late-June days, the sunWarm, waking up as if to say,“Spring’s off, summer’s begun!”—Which would, with spring in the wings, be out of whack,A …
On Earth with Big Oilis like being in a carwith crazy uncle Ned,running red lights,ignoring stop signs,singing church hymnswhile splattering raccoons,ducklings, dogs, deer,cats, possums,plowing through old ladies,folks in wheelchairsand on scooters,crowds of schoolchildren,then whistling like …
Departure It was not like your great and gracious ways! Do you, that have naught other to lament, Never, my Love, repent Of how, that July afternoon, You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase, And frighten’d …
Mailbox Sestina So, here’s the edge of summer’s moment, cutting deep Into protracted memories like sharpened blades of grass You’d again taken for granted, cow-spittle-glazed, And cutting open the crickets’ measured elegy— Their legworks’ liquid …
Cora A new idea. There’s something strangely delicious in these strokes… I pocket the epiphany for a later pondering. My love is not a secret. We hail babbling brooks in daylight and learn to read, …
May Night The spring is fresh and fearless And every leaf is new, The world is brimmed with moonlight, The lilac brimmed with dew. Here in the moving shadows I catch my breath and sing-- …
Allies: According to Herodotus “Just how much are you worth?” Xerxes asks Pythius, reputedly the richest man in Lydia, at the entertainment Pythius was holding in his palace for Xerxes and his chiefs of staff. …
Nights Drunk and weeping. It’s another night at the live-in opera, and I figure it’s going to turn out badly for me. The dead next door accept their salutations, their salted notes, the drawn-out wailing. …
A Higher Call “Our system is so discriminatory against Black and brown people…I want to do as much as I can to make their lives easier.” — Kim Kardashian I’m different now; I aim for …
XXV Let those who are in favour with their stars Of public honour and proud titles boast, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most. Great princes’ …
Annabel Lee It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she …
Year’s End Now winter downs the dying of the year, And night is all a settlement of snow; From the soft street the rooms of houses show A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere, Like frozen-over …