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Poetry
Chance
They talked about it while soaking in an unusually deep / red tub at his rented house. How the constellations / had gone out of their way to align, so that their paths / converged for a time in the redwoods, in a shingled / cottage above the creek.
May 2018My Sister Blazed Through Her Life
When she was young, she had a small part in a play, but everyone looked at her. Dull her down, the director said, throw an old coat over her. They did, but everyone still looked at her.
May 2018Lynn Street
My father hadn’t left us yet / but I have no memory / of him living there.
April 2018The Big Picture
I try to look at the big picture. / The sun, ardent tongue / licking us like a mother besotted /with her new cub, will wear itself out. / Everything is transitory.
April 2018That’s What Experience Is All About
You live the first half of your life / Afraid that something will happen.
March 2018Illness And Literature
In those cold rooms with the blue plastic chairs, / sometimes the human condition / is an old Texas redneck with a brushy mustache / reading a Louis L’Amour novel / while waiting for his chemotherapy
February 2018The People I Work With Don’t Talk About Trump
We’re janitors, but we’re called floor-crew technicians. / We work at night. / Darius lives in a trailer with his dad / because his dad has cirrhosis and emphysema.
February 2018Mindfulness
I practice a very special / form of mindfulness / called not-minding-ness. / This has brought me peace and purified / my soul to the point that it is almost / possible to live with me.
January 2018Ode To Fat
Tonight, as you undress, I watch your wondrous / flesh that’s swelled again, the way a river swells / when the ice relents. Sweet relief / just to regard the sheaves of your hips, / your boundless breasts and marshy belly.
January 2018Selected Poems
— from “To My Husband At The Beginning Of The Holy Month Of Ramadan” | Even though you no longer believe, you wake with me / before dawn. You prepare my breakfast: porridge, sliced banana, / a cup of tea, a glass of water.
December 2017