Poetry

I didn’t play footballfor the coach.I played soccerthough my fathercoached football.He was a linebackerin high school.He inspired fearin straight dudes.I stood up straightwhen he entered a room,and many times under his gazeI wanted to die.When I was a young manin high school,I wanted to find my soul.My father the coachhad a straight shadow.I was a …

(To use the PDF embedder to see all pages of the poem, use the arrows on the bottom left-hand side.) Text: Can I please be added to this group? I’m looking to relocate Ten Bristlebirds. I’d like a disorienting trip through dark wonder. Because of the orcas / because of the snowmelt / the gnawing …

Who is your ideal reader? a lit mag asked,and after careful thought, I decidedit’s Daniel Craig, circa 2006,deliberately emerging from the seain his little blue shorts, flinging waterfrom his hair, swaggering through the wavesand onto the beach, white sand clingingto his bare feet and somehow muscular ankles,striding to the chaise longue beside mine,and opening a …

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 …

A rugged coyote wandered close by the oceanside communities. Tired, it sat beneath a palm tree and took a nap. It dreamed of its former life as a medieval dragon. It had conquered many rustic lands as a fierce dragon. Now, the lonesome coyote hardly ever sang anymore. Most of the city slickers didn’t realize …

Outside, the swarm. The dog found it first,ran crying, and now we’re both wearing balaclavasin July. You in mittens, two sweatshirts, some Oakleysfrom God knows where, hands up against the sliding glass.After the poison, the exterminator, still the waspsevery morning. The dog’s face swollen now like a football.In their nest they sleep well, we think. …

           with a phrase from Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” a name is a noose that won’t let you be.my full name was once woven from threefibers, a cord of three that i dare to breakinto two knots on a tongue. please excuse,foreman, my Hebrew. Yirmeyahu means Godis high. it’s why i love the tower from distance.O- …

grandma unfolds her dress, & 1967 patternsinto life, its story mapped in provinces, infamilies splayed naked on a dusking weave. The dressis handsewn, seaming bound by restitching. Lilac & rhubarbthreads haphazard & layer threefold along the waistlike fingers of smoke. Mesmerizing, because a dying fireis a spectacle. The dress of a hometown documentingevery small violence. …

It is winter butthe poets are still coming.I once lived in atown where there were no poetsor children. The treeswere made of salt. When the windshook, nothing happenedbut daylight. There were no handssince there was nothing to take.

a golden shovel / after Against Me! All I ever wanted to be—the summerdaydreamed of. Girl in the floral-print dress& endless golden fields. I just wanted youto future me, when so many people wantme past-tensed. I know I can’t convince themI deserve survival. A future togrow up into. I know that they can’t seea girl’s …