Poetry

Matrilineage

Matrilineage

before there was manthere was mother and the sweetinfinince of her chorus mother of heaven, mother of earth, mother of mothers and other gods. mother of motherlands, broken waters, mountain peaks, and fertile valleys. mother of wind, mother of music, mother of sorrow and song. mother of echoes, mother of echoes, of echoes, echoes. mother …

Greek Chorus

Greek Chorus

Having nottouched myselfin some timeowing tothe erosionof incrementalsadnessesthat can detacha personfrom their bodyas cleanlyas a cliffis sheared froma coastline,the doctorinforms methat lovingmyselfis now myjob. So I take upmy own twofingers andwork them withthe seriousnessof earned saltand an imaginarysalaryinto the littoralcavern ofmy pussy. Andlike a wavethat sweeps theunsuspectingfrom the rockybreakwater,quite suddenlyeveryonewho has everfucked me isfucking meagain—mywife’s …

Tending the Garden

Tending the Garden

My mother tells me my grandmother has begun to touch herself. Dress up, hands between her legs, furious & buckling, & I wonder: how long has it been since she’s been touched by anyone? Decades, I presume. Does there come a point in life where you stop craving pleasure or do you learn to no …

Haibun

Haibun

A carpet of moss exhales inside an abandoned temple. A lone figure scrapes grime from a row of faded headstones. He brings flowers to a sunken patch of grass—chrysanthemum, hyacinth, pink lily mid-bloom—& lights a white candle beside the bouquet. Pacing the soil above his love’s stripped bones, upon the damp ground he kneels. Summer …

Writing When the World’s a Mess

He was late for the flight. She can’t find her sandals.He waved to her behind zigzagging stanchions. She thinks about her future. He used a towel for the leaky toilet.She scrubs the sink as rain overflows the street.He hated continental breakfast. She thinks continent, an adjectivefor restraint. He boiled water. She weighs out tea for …

Irritable Reaching Syndrome

Irritable Reaching Syndrome

There was so much quicksandin the movies when I was a kid,so that’s what I think of as I watchan ant thrash on the carnivorous leafof a butterwort plant, each attemptto free itself from the viscid tongueonly making the situation worse,a dawning panic as it lifts a legand with its mandibles tries to snip offone …

Art after War

Art after War

Luminous—the ink you pouraround bullet holesto paint blooms pain turned topetals, terror—tostyle and stigma Ovaries fill withjuice, and we too learn:lives are fragile & can get broken As for life, it says yesAlways—yes No usedenying it

Myths: A Sonnet Crown

Myths: A Sonnet Crown

1 On All-You-Can-Eat A sentence is not always a consequence waiting to happen.The edges of the park were yellow-taped from the public.When the first man landed on the moon, I only wanted to gohome. No one listens to the radio after the hurricane makeslandfall. I dreamt of walls papered with ripped bougainvillea.People always say the …

Entrails

Entrails

Pelvic bones are nothing like wingsor blades. I know because I saw them in a meadowat Mount Diablo. They must have come from a mother cow,birth canal a wide hollow. I touchedthe wild rye that pulsed inside.*Once, in the desert, my motherand I argued about the shape of the earthuntil I wept. Wind chimes jangled …

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