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Poetry
Poetry
Haunted
Mouse angels I have called them, / terrifying and warm and mythical, / seeming almost terrified themselves, / skittering after the echoes of / their own voices homing in / on the smaller creatures of the night
May 2022
Poetry
More Of This, Please
In grad school I had a writing teacher who’d completely cream my essays. / Cross-outs and tracked changes. He took me at my word / when I said I wanted to get better.
April 2022Poetry
I Pledge Allegiance To The Republic
Every morning the public school chooses a student to lead us in patriotic worship over the intercom. I stand before my classroom flag and count my heartbeats. At recess I draw stars and stars.
April 2022Poetry
Louisiana Saturday Nights
Man who once was a boy on a strawberry farm in Ponchatoula. / Man who pulled me onto his lap in front of his friends, / played my spine like a fiddle. / The notes were off beat, / off-key, a collection of minor chords in my teenage heart.
March 2022Poetry
The Cardinal Reminds Me
It sweeps and arcs across my path / almost every day on my walk to the cafe, / under sun or cloud, its red / seeming lit from inside, a brightness / bold as the lipstick my mother wore
March 2022Poetry
Another View
This morning the receptionist ushers me / into the Magnolia Room, reserved / for those receiving a “different type” / of mammogram, although I can discern / no obvious difference from the Dogwood Room, / where I waited last week for the usual sort, / the one about which my friends and I joke / and pretend we schedule as casually as a teeth-cleaning.
February 2022Poetry
My Father’s Messages Erased From My Answering Machine
“Hi, it’s just me.” This might be the only phrase I know for sure / was on the years of messages the phone company erased / when they — inexplicably — changed my number. / The messages are gone, but the grief is still there, / ripe, a fullness I’m glad I possess. We think we want grief / to pass, but what would I do if it were gone, / like the messages, irretrievable?
February 2022Poetry
Quarantine Poem #17
Staying at home with my books and out-of-tune piano / and a cat who loves me only when she’s out of food is nothing new. / I’m OK. Thank you for asking. I have become quite used to sending / thoughts and prayers to those who keep the world going round / while I spin old punk records — Dead Kennedys, Buzzcocks, Crass — / lamenting days long past.
January 2022Poetry
Test
This time my mother got it all right. / The year, the month, and the day. / The president’s name. Where she’s staying. / So she thinks she’s going home. / When I stop by the rehab center, she tells me / to make sure the heat’s turned up, / the cable switched on again, fresh / milk in the fridge.
January 2022Poetry
My Mother Says She Does Not Know How To Cook
“How did you make this?” she always asks. “A recipe,” I tell her. No magic trick. No skill. Just buying ingredients, following directions, not varying from what I’m supposed to do.
December 2021
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