What Iron can Pierce the Heart with Such Force as a Period
In our father’s housea question mark lived in the room next to oursOther parts of speech wandered the hallsCommas wept at the windowscolons twisted in their bedsexclamation points choked our throatsOur speaking marks were empty We consented to the lock and key of his rulesAnything to avoid his bedroomwhere the full sentence lived The dash […]
Bone Mountain
When does loneliness end? They tell menot to ask this question until I breakmy legson the mountain climbI look up at the monasteryan atlas bone holding upthe heavensI promise to continue myweight training here. They accept meon condition that it isn’twait trainingthat I engage in the purple robes ofthe momentarythe bells inside my chestthe thin […]
Those That Are Deer
When you lay your cheek on the pillow next to mine had you begun to change Beneath the cover I felt among our twined ankles a whisper of keratin bigger than your toenail Your large ears splayed on the pillowyour pooled eyes, a soft snout Close in the breathing air, we slept A dignified night-tempo of limbs Outside, water […]
Strings of Baling Twine
I brought him home from his polein the fieldunhooked himA few bits of straw fellout of his pantsWhen I carried him across the threshold as one carriesa brideI swear he smiled, but beneath the brimof his straw hat, who could really tellHe doesn’t scare crows anymore Crows crowd the field and gorge onhis absenceThey round […]
Malic
On the lip of nighta heronbeside a bygone tractorA rusted calla sweep of wing to break the seal of years Tucked into the hillock beyondsomeone lies in bedMalic scents of springwag the tails of his dogsThe waking earth can almost taste the tiller What need has he of old machineryCankered hopesthe must of griefengines all […]
I Am the Clay
What you leave behind:Clay grief, a gnashing of tools.I use your fettling knife to cut two crude lumps,slice fingers into the slabs,sculpt the sculptor’s hands. I give you our mother’s ridged nails,hint at eternitywith lucent half-moons,crimp your knuckles with the needle.Then there are veins, those rumors of blood.Lifesize hands. I make them bigger than they were, with […]
A Salt Pact
A ceremony with your three daughtersYou held our ankles, dangled us overboard, made us kiss the seaa pledge of loyalty You sailed us in mineral rich currents flowing from a deep trenchPickings abounded there, as did your death lessonsScale and gut the fishchop off the dorsal finsthe pectoralsRun your knife besidethe spineFeel the blade cutting through each rib To sate […]
A Rib Becomes a Branch
A rib becomes a branchan earlobe an acornmy teeth, the serrate edge of a leaf See my feet, club mossEven my dandruff appears industy lichenSomewhere out here are my eyes toomy liver as feather in the bloodof a crestThe pileated who owns my voicevacates my shrieks to hollows for wood ducks Beneath me surgeon ants poise to […]
A Pink Dress
It is about a pink dress.About the drape of one leg over another on a bar stool, two hands clasping an icy Campari.It is about the ear of a man and what he hears.The mouth of that woman and what she says.Her throat: that silk roadway along which her words, drenched with bitters, race north. The […]
At the Hour of Milk
When the barn lit up for the very first timethe cowsin their stanchionsgave no milkThe galvanized bucketsdeep black holesanthracitic as the ravens on the fencefive in a rowa line of them reaching the farmlike the new electricityThey appeared that eveninghearing lightmotionlessvoiceless as though whittled of coalBeyondin theeerie reach of the new lightthe cowstrembledthe channels for their filthall […]