Are They Lisianthus?
My eighty-year-old mother says no, no, I think they just are. She doesn’t remember names, what was. Roots sunk deep, she just is. I dream of gardens: boxwood labyrinths where I might lose myself. Some place where the planted surpasses the planned. Untended blossoms become brambles. Brambly thicket, her mind. …
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Artifacts
I could tell you that I’m brave, but brave is a lie. I could tell you that I’m doing well, but that denies the very nature of loss. This is an archaeological dig, everything contained & conjured. It’s raining/blackbirds. I drag a duffel, grey, onto the porch & start …
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While He Works, the Electrician Chats
about disaster. Connections at switches twisted just a bit loose. Squirrels in the attic, sharp teeth and splintered copper. Breakers corroding themselves into spark. Outlets that smell like burning because they are. Now he’s sawing a hole in our sheetrock. Says the air behind walls can whip with current. Arcing …
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Worn
This distressed pair of cut-off shorts once belonged to my best friend’s high- school boyfriend. My favorite tank top? A t-shirt, sleeves sliced away, traded with a stranger one summer, dark of the dive bar hiding whatever we might want hidden. All of our clothes are falling apart. Did you …
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Lookout
He took a week to gather his things and move into my body. Not what we’d packed in his coffin. Pickaxe, Maine gold, tourmaline, his dog’s ashes. Only what would not press for space. Breath, curses, dreams. I couldn’t explain. I tried, said I was inhabiting my body as a …
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Pietà I: afterbirth
once the gushing stopped I got a good look at him— at the boy I mean—he crowned this morning that bloodless god took blood from me & lord he fumbled blind like a puppy for my milky-eyed nipple teeth ached & we stank in the filth of us our new …
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I Hold God at Morning in a Prayer
Dear God, see me walking with my darkness. See me at this corner with rotten pears in my mouth. I have spoken so much about the leaking memories in my bones. I have spoken so much about my worries that I wonder if anyone listens. The tears I know are …
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Quiet Corner
1. Once a camel now a dog, my bladder marks my way to the toilet. Parkinson’s paralyzes my friend’s legs and larynx. The film of Alzheimer’s clouds a colleague who, at parties, recited Beowulf. I read about the poet who puts his face between a woman’s thighs, not knowing she’s …
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Diagnosis
I’ve joined the widow now who holds her breath and wears blue gloves to change hotel sheets with sets she brings from home, then leaves behind on mornings she flies out. I’ve joined him too, the lawyer who unscrews his toilet seats when summer grandsons weep and wave goodbye. The …
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Achromatopsia
Colors hiding in the fields. Having fled my eyes in a sudden mutiny. A revolution rare among visual glitches. City rendered sad, a cold faded etching. Egg yolks the color of cream. Blood stains uncarnadined. Startled birds white on a gray laurel hedge. Went to sleep with the reds and …
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