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Poetry
Lucky Pick
At the library / you can ask for a “lucky pick,” / meaning the librarian will choose / a novel for you based on what you tell her, / like blind dating or a toy / buried deep in the bottom of a box / of cereal, because there are still things / in life that might surprise us.
May 2021My Mother Is A Peaceful Ghost
In my dreams my mother keeps walking out of the kitchen singing, / You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. / She never sings past the first verse.
May 2021Spam From The Dead
And two months after the cancer finally ate through / the last tissues that separated him from death, / I get a message from his e-mail address, / urging me to click on a link I know I shouldn’t
May 2021Backyard Mercy
A fruit fly fell in my fine crystal glass / half full of five-dollar wine. / Annoyed, I almost flung the final sips / behind a rosebush.
May 2021Things To Do In Buffalo, Wyoming, While Waiting Out The Coronavirus
Chop wood, shovel snow, bake bread, / make dinner, and after take the compost / to the bin, nearly full though only half / decomposed.
May 2021My Father Got Beat
My father got beat / but he never beat me. / His skinny frame would tighten up, / he’d start to shake with a seething rage / at my errors, my arrogance, / he’d clench his bony fingers and say / “I’ll sock ya” but he never did.
April 2021My Late Breast
My late breast was a model citizen: / humble, honest, kind. She gave / to her community, always erring / on the generous side.
April 2021Being Wrong
One of the great / unheralded joys of late / middle age is the mind-popping / sensation / of how many things / I’ve been wrong about, / starting with sex, / my parents, / and the meaning of the word / bruschetta
April 2021Fighting Back
When I was nine, / my father began / telling me how to hurt / other boys. He said to / squeeze their upper lips / until their eyes watered / or twist their ears and / hold them low so you can / walk them like a dog.
March 2021Noses
It was never / in the news / or on Twitter / or Facebook or / Instagram / that on October / twenty-third, / two thousand / eighteen, at six-thirty PM
February 2021
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