Before a globe is pressed into a sphere, the shape of the paper is an asterisk. This planet is holding our place in line: look out for metallic chips of meteor hurtling through the universe. On my drive … Continued
1. Daddy In his last photos he looked unhappy cutting the thick dry ham For Thanksgiving he sat alone eating in the snow under the crow’s irritating call He should have posed for another picture on another day Instead he … Continued
This poem imagines the exchange on audiotapes from “the wife” to “the blind man” in the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. The story is typically taught and discussed as if the blind man’s relationship with the wife was entirely platonic … Continued
I close the shutters, leave a wink of light to keep from burning down my paper house. The seams are creased. I move about in my tattered plight slowly. Elbow on the table, skin puckered makes a kissing … Continued
to explain how a tributary becomes a river there isn’t a way but for the tributary to deny it— I deny the very river I deny the paying of tribute grow up, say the men in my life … Continued
For Willa Frierson, the whole family, the Kenyon Review’s Young Writers Workshop, and for Gambier, Ohio: the most magical town in the world. Because I came home I became estranged / but in a soft way, like how … Continued
The hunters at the gas station under the fluorescent lights. The man in front of me lets me go because I’m a woman, it’s long been a ruling that women and children go first. Waxing towards full duchess, … Continued
On my way up north I stop to fill the Honda up. I like to time the emptiness so I can fill it at my favorite place: a Chevron with a taqueria in the minimart where the Honda … Continued
The Boardwalk lit up in constellations of tilt-o-whirls and loop-o-planes, and I can’t find a word to express loneliness that brilliant and hard-won. I have a stillness in me that’s yellow-paged and bramble-lashed. I think the word I … Continued
I wrote a book called The Book of Disorder I wrote a book called The Atlas of Tics I’m famous in supraliminal circles I wrote a book called The History of the Sponge It has devolving syntax I … Continued
I’m having trouble writing poetry he wrote trouble being a poetry writer I don’t know I … Continued
Path Today: Fresh Path: Another Kind of Path: Current Path: High School Path: Path of Discernment: Public Speaking Path: Path to The Podium: Monday Morning Path: Path of Least Resistance: Back At It: Path: Sometimes a Path is … Continued
TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH BY DAVID BRUNSON When I think of freedom I think of Isla, my mare, And I think of a photo of my grandmother, Gorgeous at seventeen. She remembers, in those days, When a man told her … Continued
TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH BY DAVID BRUNSON I joined the socialist party at 16. That is I lived through the flowering of a failed state before losing my virginity. We watered the votes with our voices, The revolution was our … Continued
He crows to prepare our yards with his presence, and he orders the space between us. He stands it up straight. Inside his own sound, he is the world itself, not of it. He populates our yards with … Continued
When I mention a crush I have on some boy I’ll forget in three weeks’ time or never, call it love, Scuba, my closest friend, rolls his eyes, shoots back Did you pee on him so he’s marked as … Continued
Holding my death in his mouth I’m reminded of a cat Snapping a canary up All blood and blonde feathers and grey fur Tiny beak and talons no match against that Merciless beast Poor creature I have arrived here And … Continued
FOR ALL FORMS OF POWER ARE FORMS OF VIOLENCE AMONG MEN. —MIKHAIL BULGAKOV, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA I gotta get my mind off the pulsing tightness in my chest so my psychiatrist has asked me to think on … Continued
My children stopped eating when we moved to this country. Their sandwiches come home untouched in their sacks, whole apples, whole crackers, un-nibbled pieces of cheese. Breakfast, they refuse fruit, toast, yogurt. They sip dew-beads of water from … Continued
Mother tells Girl, who chews the word like bubble gum. Or, newly toothed, Girl really chews an elephant’s helping of gum. More interested in blowing a bubble than in the names of what she can see. … Continued