Autopsy/Inventory
I splay my grandmother's organs on the dining table and inventory what nobody wants; the table itself antiquated, scratched notes to a forgotten doll, fills the space of her liver. Her stomach pops under pressure of a knife, canned peas and apologies; a metal sheath beneath her…
Bomb of Choice
evacuation is paywalled // animals run towards the light but away from the heat // they can't tell the difference // did you see? a man patted out a burning bunny with his bare hands // it lived thank God // humanity, revived // drive your Tesla down your home street in ashes // we…
We Were Girls Together
(after Toni Morrison) I'll never know what it's like to be a man to look at the world and know it's mine, but I think I will pity him anyway. He will only ever see the woman. I will always see the girl. Because women recognize women who were girls together, blunt bangs and…
First Date
The wine stains my bones and drips polished taffy, the payment of a child taking and holding. You've been in the bathroom a long time. Shakes swallow my little freak hands. I pay for both meals and leave before you come back. There's a candy mint on the plate made of my ring finger and…
Your Statutory Rights Are Not Affected
For this poem to operate properly it requires a moment of meaningful silence at its centre. A moment of meaningful silence is not included with this poem. To begin experiencing your poem to the full please insert your moment of silence: [ h e r e ] I am sorry…
Endless Game
As the boy plays tennis on his own through the terrible nights, through the hideous days, people wonder, how does he live under spotlights and sun, smeared across cement like paint? Kids stare behind the eyes of their glowing cigarettes; lonely women take snaps on telephoto lenses;…
Simplicity
For Roy M. Lyon—whereabouts unknown—he loved his students so deeply, we all became his forever-writers You said you didn't write poetry and certainly wouldn't waste time reading it. Liar. I found my poem in the pocket of your coat. I found where you'd copied it and left it on your desk.…
Everything Dead was Once Alive
The tin soldiers tightened their tin boots, filled their tin rifles with tin bullets, summoned their tin courage. The fields were soon covered in tin blood. The survivors marched home leaving a trail of footprints shivering beneath a yellow sky. The wrinkled caravan…
Not So Unlikely
The mailman and firewoman toasted their love with flutes of Champagne, shed the scars of past romances like a snake molts skin. She called his mouth "glory." He called her mouth "rosebud." They left each other troths written on rice paper. She left his in his coffee cup. He left…
I Looked at the World and Declared it Incomprehensible
I forget when I first realized that people are windows, look into them, look through them, temporary, self-indulgent clouds of sadness, oceans of the past. But I wanted to be more, wanted to build a better me. I had the dentist pull my teeth…
You Can Learn A Lot About Love From This
Each Monday we flipped a coin to decide who would love the other more. On Wednesday we played rock-paper-scissors to decide who would roll their eyes and shake their head. If everything else failed, there was always the lightning we kept in a Tupperware…
On the French Broad River Bridge at Twilight
Because Dad refused to die, we circled the block, knuckles white while two hours turned to four, then eight and twelve. At thirteen, our hospital beepers sang like synchronized trumpets. Dad drained but jubilant, bursting back into the stream of his…
When I Told Mr. L That He Would Die
Mrs. L resolved to care for him alone, returning them to a long-past honeymoon cocoon. Ignoring my caution, she stayed with him night and day, holding off other caregivers. She did the washing and cooking and dosing and caring, and yet the wheezing in his lungs…
The Leon Russianoff Clarinet Studio
In a quieter corner of Times Square, between 47th and 48th, a smiling Sabrett hot dog vendor positioned his cart at the unattended door. The inner hallway reeked of the night's stale urine and the elevator uncertain in its labor to the fourth floor. Its single,…
The Juggler
In striped pants and a Yankees cap, he flings a cloud of balls into the air—yellow, red, blue. His feet propel a unicycle in multi-dimensional motion. He gives himself to this work, sweat burnishing his forehead, fingers dancing, wrists twisting, eyes fixed in a trance-like gaze every…
What Darwin said about the origin of species
we evolved to tear each other down / in this fishing net we evolved to remember the tiger / the rainbow meanwhile hangs outside the doorway / curled outward we evolved to not eat too many sweets / slow syrup and quick hydraulics / we evolved to sound…
choker
it gleamed once, a circle of warmth, gems soft with memory, each crystal a quiet vow. but in the night, it turned, edges sharpened by silence, clasps pulled tight by forgetting. i woke to a mouthful of blood, the cold kiss of amethyst biting into breath love does that sometimes, wraps…
Assimilated Tongue
The bullets from the bullies in the classroom Cost me my tongue From the teacher who told me To speak clearer, To speak slower, To speak English Last time I checked Guyana was the only English-speaking country in South America And we spoke perfect English Last time I checked…
The Making Of A Ghost
for Alex In a room where Silence becomes stifling You'll hear your name In their voice And wonder where it came from Snapping your neck around Only to decide It was in your head You'll find a few strands of their hair On pillowcases and on floors where they walked Like…
Home
the dog downstairs that ruins my demos. dragging out my mom's lunch breaks. my linguistic inconsistencies. calling everyone's cats fat. heart-shaped locks. the smell of forests after rain. bare feet against sunny kitchen tiles. patched up jeans. fresh nails. chipping. not so cheap perfume…
5:21pm, under Bath Abbey
there was the dusk you didn't see; the cathedral's stone walls all spilled with gold, a busker playing Walking on the Moon, his hair, too, kissed by the sun. I sat down, listening, hoping your shadow would envelop everything, but instead a grey pigeon crossed the bench and…
Strawberry Milkshake
The day I ripped you from my heart, I had to fight the sour aftertaste you left. I chopped pink-red strawberries, dropped them in a cup, poured in milk, some half-melted vanilla ice cream forgotten on the counter, then blended it all. It came out smooth, sweet, a little…
Your name shouldn’t own things
It's unnatural. I can't look at four- leaved clovers and think of it anymore; a dandelion would be more fitting. I can't set foot in Abbeys or Cathedrals, nor hear of certain saints—all because of a sinner. I deprive myself of hymns and songs, wrap them in thin…
Static Announced
the sky's foggy owls hooing in a barn—somewhat weather-doused the idiot box is streaming something, for sure— images strike as flashes, and someone I think, sang blues for a while—or long with unparted lips, perhaps, in their mind, for the heart alone our eyes fixed at infinity on…
Healing
Time to glean this path to the mountain top. I gain elevation, I hail the sun. At home, I hang a picture of it by my bedside, held by a single nail. The gale knocked me down, but the glen revived me. Age slows me, but I lean in to the climb. A gang of wolves howls back and forth.
There is a House in These Woods
There is a house in these woods and it is secret You won't find it if you look for it, as it is only there for the truly lost to see Some would claim it looks old, its wooden bones decayed and barely standing while others insist that it is new, like those…
What the Hands Remember
Hands remember what language abandons. The warmth of a cup, the familiar resistance of a table, the brief permission to rest without explanation. When names dissolve, the hands remain, holding the negative space of what was given and never asked to be explained. Lee…
The Weight of Light
Light does not fall. It leans. Against windows, against shoulders, against the unguarded places inside us. By evening, buildings tire of reflection, and the river keeps what remains without reply. I follow not brightness, but its burden— the quiet discipline of staying. Lee…
Stillness, After the Rain
After the rain, the street relearns its name. What falls away leaves a softer outline— puddles holding what the sky released too soon. The city lowers its voice, as if sound itself could cause damage. A leaf hesitates, balanced between directions, and in that brief…
Collateral Harm
The morning was warm and sticky in the swampy landscape of Boxelder, a tiny hamlet located in the heavily wooded northeastern corner of Texas. Weeding his potatoes, old man Parsons paused to pull his sweat-slicked shirt away from his body, hoping the wind would pick up. The puffy…
