Sincerely
Dearest, I meant to prove myself worthy of every challenge, up to death itself. The day began with feats of strength, like getting out of bed and brushing my teeth. I took till noon to venture out; by then the […]
Wounded
I found a cricket in my kitchen, wounded, on its back,
little legs flailing as if it could walk upside down. I heard..
no chirps, no yelps of pain, no cries for help;
I lacked the heart to crush him. Gently, I carried him
You needn’t believe in ghosts to dance with them. Just ask the Robin napping in the quiet of a broken fountain, drunk on jasmine and sugar. Ask drowsy Orion, who was up all night, or the Taiga, bent on its […]
Love in Other Worlds: A Sonnet
To write love poems when this world’s a mess
is like, depending on your point of view,
finding jasmine on the moon—an excess
of joy where all is bleak—or dreams of blue
sky at night, of food in famine…
Mourners
We are all mourners now, our clothes
funeral shrouds we tear off our backs
when the time comes (and it will come);
in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying
the graves we stumble on in schools, churches,
nightclubs, concerts, grocery stores, streetcorners…
Life: A Sonnet
We spill talk like blood—O, I cherish you!
—but we cannot sustain the sentiment,
so we spill blood like blood, a kind of coup
against ourselves; no, I never meant
you harm, just want what’s best for my children
Numb
I can’t decide anything these days: sonnet or free verse;
to read on the couch or spend my son’s brief nap putting
away dishes as if dishes could ever stay clean; hope or
despair…
Earth Day 2022
I’ve had my head in the clouds so long
I don’t know how to climb back to my body.
In dreams my head is buried in the sand
and I make no effort to lift it.
Words of Wisdom for America’s Teenagers
When I was your age I suffered from acne, too,
was warned that if I got bad grades, dropped out,
spent too much time on poems, the sky would come
crashing down.