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Poetry
Mad to Live
When my children began to tattoo their skin, / even modest images scared me. / I winced at each new embellishment, / wishing them innocence, not scars.
September 2025Avium
You don’t know what’s with Marjorie, // but you almost love her as you gird your loins for a cure / worse than the disease. Imagining two years of drugs / in your still-able body that climbs hills and sings, // you can’t stop wondering how you got this thing. Yet / it must be said avium blesses you with a meaning hardly / to be believed. . .
September 2025Manicure
What remains of their visit is memory, residue, / trickles of sand from our trip to the beach. / I confess, I like my bedazzled talons . . .
August 2025There, Here, Jazz
The first time I walked into our new old house, it was the light / that surprised me—how much of it fell through the four windows / facing south and landed wide across the floorboards . . .
August 2025At Union Square Park
A buck isn’t enough for his cup, this ex-con / wants a five, yelling for every passerby to stop / and read his Rikers wristband. // Look hard. Harder, he demands as he points.
August 2025
Parting Advice
I forgot our host had a cat, / so Tony and I both backed out the door / to grab the Allegra I always keep in my car, / a habit that says a lot about me, / he said, before we threw back our heads / and downed our pills like shots of whiskey
July 2025Levi Strauss & Co.
When he dies, my father turns into a small stone on the bed. A smooth oval I weigh in my palm, grip, and then, after a minute, draw circles over with my thumb.
July 2025Exile for the Sake of Redemption
The way a teacher, standing at the blackboard, / chalk in hand, / suddenly withdraws into himself / to follow the comet tail / of a thought / more profound than he has ever known
July 2025Ode to Middle School Band
All shuffle into this stuffy / school gym to behold / the clumsy miracle of hands— / where to put them, how, when.
June 2025Tending the Wound
My memory of you is a knife // with no sheath, / heavy as November in my pocket.
June 2025
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