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Poetry
Selected Poems
— from “Song for Picking Up” | Every time that something falls / someone is consigned to pick it up.
May 2014At Last
It is not true that every son / and father come to this / the rough bass of your voice / singing the endless tune
April 2014On A Cliff With You
If we were both / hanging from a cliff / by one hand / you’d tell me how scary / it was to be hanging / from a cliff / by one hand
March 2014Red Tights
When I see my friend’s little girl / in the produce aisle, she beams, “I’m happy. / I have new red tights and a boyfriend!”
March 2014A Habit Of Ascent
Childhood, the first eternity, / as I wandered our vast acre, / trying to escape the sun.
March 2014Waiting For Rain
Finally morning. This loneliness / feels more ordinary in the light, more like my face / in the mirror. My daughter in the ER again. / Something she ate?
February 2014My Father’s Lesson
I picture him standing in the church superintendent’s office, / the grim man threatening to fire my father from his pastorship / in the small town of Live Oak if he continued to attend / the interdenominational prayer group that spoke in tongues.
February 2014Unselected Poems
You’ve published enough books, old man. / Let someone else have a turn. / The letter doesn’t say that, / but it might as well.
January 2014Between Lifetimes
But love is a rusting machine / you call to have serviced over and over again, / hoping the pieces won’t have to be replaced. Again and again / you apply the grease until the engine inches forward.
December 2013
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