On:

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

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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

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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

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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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THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENTS PAST On our twelfth year’s Christmas we triedTo find ourselves the kind of couple whoSwings but instead it became you me &A third wheel who all but wrapped mouthsAround our ornamented curriculum vitaeBlushing we offered ourselves peppermintParty shooters w/ a real bad name Santa’sFrosty NippleContinue Reading

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When my husband, Doug, and I lived on Cuesta Grade in SLO, I started dreaming about this man in a blue uniform with a name tag. This dream kept coming back, but I could never make out the name. It was a recurring dream which had a sense of urgencyContinue Reading

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I (in i Takei, a/k/a Fiji, circa 1840) Drumming thrumming through thick forest treesmakes hearts race – the i Takei freeze,listening to the lali, wooden drumtelling what has passed or what’s to come. Do i uauas beat a celebrationsounding boisterous congratulationsto a mother nursing her newborn?Is the lali’s resonance forlornContinue Reading

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In the House only soundA few notes of Chopin in the nightVoices echo and drift in old wallsImprisoned perhaps for centuriesA dog whines from the atticThe sound wavering, plaintiveWater’s still running in the old pantryA skipping rope thumps insistentlyHigh above on the nursery floorTennis balls thud on ghostly racquetsIn tournamentsContinue Reading