after Swan Lake The curtain rises, clean as a guillotine dripping velvet crimson. You, my sister, pirouette—the false bride, the decoy. All eyes survey your whirl like palms assessing thigh…
Along uphills and nettles, she comes finally to the bald—star of Bethlehem, water and stone, reflecting pool of unresolve. Weathered thick of skin in late killing frost, paper lunaria loosed to…
I wish I could take that spark and eat it for dinner I could take the flame from your candle, that heightened teardrop pouting smoke, pinch it between my fingers…
We come to her kitchen line each morning in the light and fog of Oak Street Junior High, we are nothing. You are everything. Fresh from the morning fights…
She knew the mushrooms that were safe, where to find young greens in March, salves to heal the brown eyes of a calf. She called a hummingbird to the porch…
I’ve never believed in magic, despite the seals and foxes that kept showing me the way. This April, when the cherry blossoms shook themselves loose, I finally felt what witches…
She comes downstairs smelling of woodsmoke and pine, hair a gilded knot, hands flying up like two startled birds when she lays eyes on me. I’m only here by folly,…
It was a strange place, the territory I found myself in after hearing This mall is a faggot-free zone through the mounted megaphone of a passing pick-up. Like a faerytale,…
No one believed the child. They say there’s a sucker born every minute, but in fact four people come squalling into the world every second of the day, each and…
You left there in old age A snow ball off the slope Heard a bus to heaven (or to hell) Heard a field without any crop growing there Which may…
