Poetry

Suzi got her teeth in Tijuana— now not an Implant in her head— courtesy of her filthy rich parents looking for a deal

My aunt is disappearing along with all the small talk, the old stories the laughs… Sometimes, when I visit her eyes flash for an instant with an old light before she disappears again into the mist. She still has a phone, still knows how to push the big button marked KATE.  She doesn’t call much…

in your hospital gown bleached gray as an old dog’s beard, the robe hanging from the anvil of your back, gnarled feet in paper slippers. I’ll float you away on a carpet of bed sheets. Paddle-boat to the edge of a gently sighing lake. Speed you away on skates. Do you remember the book of…

I dream, too. In this dream, Judy’s rage ruffles the quiet cut-outs of her collar. Madame! she shouts at the teen mother whose boyfriend’s Pitbull bites. First the boyfriend and his infected tattoo. Then his five kids. Then the biting dog. My mother’s telling Judy about her girlhood mutt, Shadow, a dark cannonball rolling across…

I watched the surfers this morning. A ballet of arrowheads floated over jade glass, Cormorants as audience dove alongside. They remind me of the Bongo Board, mom balanced barefooted in our den, on a seesaw of sorts, auburn hair flipped at the shoulder, red luster upstages fluorescents of a Pucci minidress, her satin slingbacks dyed…

My granddaughter’s eyelashes are arcs of fringe at the edge of her lids as she stares down at a sheet of paper, her right hand, intent on capturing the two dogs’ faces, guides a pen: Frida with her sugar-cone-shaped snout and triangular ears, inky coat a dead match for her eyes, orbs only visible when…

Every evening, my father strolled along the Ala Wai canal before dinner. Once, during a visit, he leaned over and whispered, I have a surprise. Accompanied by the scent of pikake, we walked along the Ala Wai to a convenience store, and sat down on a wooden bench facing an ancient banyan tree filled with…