Browse Sections
Poetry
Leaving Home
Opening my legs for her wasn’t easy. / She was hunched and burnt-looking. / Her whole face puckered toward her mouth. / She spoke with words like “dirty shame” / while she gave her absolution — / a small, white cloth inserted / into my womb.
June 1988On The Edge Of Shambhala
Leaving the chiropractor’s office / driving through the woods along the Cold River / I wanted to write a poem
June 1988Selected Poems
All month I thought of your body, / soft with its delicious baby flesh / and fragile with its hidden bulbs and bones, // and knew you would be torn. / I pulled your small shoulders / closer as the days passed, / and some nights felt the tumor / rise beneath my palm like a burl / in a redwood forest, / worrywart, skullcap / under the duff of your skin.
—from “The Operation”
June 1988I Have No Brother
The only furniture / in that tiny room / where my brother lives / is a mirror / on a plain white / wall. When I enter / that room / there is only myself. // I am searching for / my brother. I have no brother.
June 1988Snow White
She has always fought it down, / that subterranean dwarf / that rises up. / She has tried to be / the keeper of perfect cottages, / perfectly embellished.
June 1988
Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today