Stick Figures
12Grandmother. Ten years old and I’m kneeling on the carpet next to her. She smells like flowers with English Garden names: peony, jasmine, narcissus; she smells like black and white…
Read MoreThe Artichoke Women
I love the smell of Artichokes cooking. It’s earth in a boiling pot. It is memories of adults when I wasn’t. It’s the women in my family sitting around a…
Read MoreLeaving Words Behind
It all started with a walk and a dog The dog, Kukui, with his tail that whirls like a helicopter Brisk little legs to lead us down the street his…
Read MoreProof of Life
There is a tiny person under my roof this morning. She arrived two days ago, and I fussed and worried and sterilized and kept the appropriate social distance, until finally…
Read MoreThe Old Couple
Day after day, the old couple down the street climbed into their car to keep it company. Going through the motions of being alive, she whipped around the steering wheel,…
Read MoreEmergence
I thought, on this sunlit morning, having tea on my own stretch of lake, listening to the returned pair of King Fishers from last year, their chitters audible above the…
Read MoreStarlings
New life explodes in open vents vespers of baby bird chirps cacophony of hunger Spirit cloistered in crawl space sings out to our weary souls and we listen.
Read MoreHope Poems
1. My Heart, a Stone I’d like to start a bonfire in my heart but today there’s just a stone; last night, a whirlwind; before, a broken mirror. It seems…
Read MoreWith a Bang
—with a bang—the hairy flower wild petunia—flings its tiny seeds—sudden and far—how and why—the scientist—kneels down—clamps a metal band—on a pigeon’s leg—her initials—and i.d. number—my broken toe—x-rayed, recorded—at the Bleecker…
Read MoreDESCENDING
glow leaves of autumn —gold afternoon— I thought first electric lights against a purple rain-swollen sky while a drizzle lit by that same gap in clouds shines down On Lha…
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