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Companion Animals
Quarantine Poem #17
Staying at home with my books and out-of-tune piano / and a cat who loves me only when she’s out of food is nothing new. / I’m OK. Thank you for asking. I have become quite used to sending / thoughts and prayers to those who keep the world going round / while I spin old punk records — Dead Kennedys, Buzzcocks, Crass — / lamenting days long past.
January 2022Relationship Tips
I put aside the previous rejections and try again. This time I don’t mess around with coffee. I don’t want anything that might allow her a graceful out or result in a request to be friends. I have friends. I ask her on a dinner date.
November 2021
Better
My eyes filled again. Filippo came by and murmured, “Think of the little light in your chest,” and somehow I understood him. I don’t know how. I let the light shine.
October 2021
A Slip Of Paper
found amid the rolls / of gift wrap: / a Trader Joe’s receipt / from December 23rd / eight years ago
July 2021Ghost Dogs
What happened next I shoveled into that dark ditch of my psyche, and then I covered it with heavy stones, and it wasn’t until more than twelve years had passed that I remembered what I’d made myself forget.
July 2021
Funeral For A Hamster
I was unable to protect my children from heartache. I couldn’t keep them from the pain of it. But I could ease their journey by helping them light their dead hamster’s funeral pyre.
April 2021
After We Buried The Dog In The Dark
He came back. I saw him / in the grass, the white of him / glowing in the floodlight, / the wind turning it off / and on again. / I saw his face at the door, / waiting to be let in, / his nose leaving smears / across the glass.
December 2020Night Cows
The cows showed up just as the world began to end. They were there when I returned to Minnesota from Manhattan, where I’d gone to pick up my older son after his spring 2020 college semester had been canceled.
August 2020
July 2020
Featuring Michael Pollan, Craig Childs, John Elder, and more.
July 2020Digging Up The Roots
In this desecrated area, the women searching for firewood must dig up the roots of the trees they have long since cut down to make space for crops.
July 2020
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