“…She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” Don’t let him take those pictures when the water meltsluminous pearl around youand the last sunbathers ascend the pale ribbon trailleaving behindthe day’s opalescent heart when onlyContinue Reading
Most of the fairgoers observed the comely womanrobed like a statue in layers of gossamer clothfair hair plaited and piled. She strode down the midway past lights that flashed and jangled, music tangledand tuneless. She paused to stare at the Ferris wheelarcing like a rainbow, tracked the buckets bobbing againstContinue Reading
“At last a deed worth doing. I say there is beauty in this….” Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler Hedda, we misunderstood you,saw a monster embodyingthe Seven Deadlies,a remorseless disrupter,deceptive and cruel,eluding boredom, inflictingpain. But your handsome faceand warrior heart weren’tsensible gear for your day. Were you a goddess, we’d expectthe flirtingContinue Reading
Your gaze speaksto my own deep iceNot sentimentmore elementalunsettling Perhaps we metin a sculptor’s studioHe shaped my shoulders, necklabored on my breastsYou watchedenigma eyes insetbeard unchiseled How long did we stare?Were we modeledfor common patronsbut cast as amorousgods, to please–my arms, AphroditeAres, your brow Surely we restedin velvet dirt, yourContinue Reading
Mostly my neckjust always hurtsthey’re heavynever still or asleep at onceI rarely sleep myself I feed them cat foodsometimes micethe pet store girl is kindlooks at our shadowwants to know their namesthat they smell deadwhen frighteneddefecate in my braincausing dark thoughtsMy children were takenI’ve never mothereddon’t remember my owntrauma interferesContinue Reading
Open your eyes.Such a simple suggestion. From such roots of isolation, with so few options for self-determination, to now observe such spectacular transformation.From a blur of a youth on a simple farm, in a place whose name I don’t even know. To a family always called to duty, whose memoryContinue Reading
Scavenged from the poem “Sway” by Denis Johnson In terror I did not knowwhat to say. Between the bones,grey breath, tarantella of once-feathers,a pillow of herself, too much, it seemed,for a skull this size. This is a story that beginsso stealthily, it’s over before we know something’s there.Now the floorContinue Reading
Do I mention you by name? Tell them how I lost you? Or do they already know –your presence already humming in the hive? This honey-colored day should be gray, misted and fogged as my dreams.Or maybe not. Maybe the sun glides over the sycamores and sweet gums, flecks theContinue Reading
Enter the graveyard.Walk the rows.Pause take in names, dates,all of it, even the things left behindfor the dead: plastic flowers,foil whirligigs, stone angels watching,watching. Mausoleums, grave plates,honor them all: death,the great equalizer. Yes, you must walk the rowsbefore you approach her. She is in the back, hidden underlow tree branches.Continue Reading
I’m stacking empty shelves,in an empty Superstore.Between the empty spaces,I see a strange old manmopping the black and white floor. Slowly the spaces are filled,baked beans, peas and peachesblock out my view of the aisle.Still, I hear the swish of the mopon the shop’s filthy floor. With my empty trolleyContinue Reading
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