What does the blue jay think When an egg falls from its nest? How does the spider handle the bat Feasting on its young? Each time another leaf slips from my limbs It hurts all the way down to my heartwood I feel the emptiness in my arms The immutable echo of vacant boughs […]
LILAC BUSH
Palette of timid plums and cocktail gowns Even when dripping with rain So luscious to the eyes I could just eat you Like a Sno-cone.
MEMORY BOX
All those photos and slides old passports in their blue leather sleeves the spreadsheet of a family tree missing some limbs cruelty or whim the atheist and love child left off the map the maybe-mulatto brother-in-law zap gone in the flick of an eraser nib a baby bib stitched with ducks birth certificates, diplomas yearbooks […]
POSTAL CLERK, LORING PARK STATION
She had on false eyelashes the kind that are bristly black and super long like the frayed edges of some weird moth batting its wings against its cheeks each time it blinked Maybe she was a burlesque queen the night before or wanted to be a burlesque queen the night ahead or just hoped to […]
OUT OF THE HAZE
That leaden shroud. White Chapel fog. The dull drag of walking in boots with steel heals. Clock, stuck. Ill from over-winding. Out of the haze, the sun will lick cheekbones with halvah and honey; stars will find home in that space behind eyelids, filling it with luxuriant dreams. The graceful sway of birch trees. Tulips […]
ON THE WAY TO O’HARE
Before Pulaski, which is Polish, there is Zabina Halal Meats, Arabic and King Pho, Vietnamese one cannot sell pork or other carnivorous things the other is renown for its Banh Xeo stuffed full of steaming pig I am a fly on this wall papered street of fusion confusion ethnic-is-city my nose pressed to the glass […]
SEPTEMBER ON A PRAIRIE PATH
All around, the grasses sway copper and flax, Warm and honeyed; while a thousand phantom Cicadas zither their wings in vibrating Song. The tips of the nodding sedge have turned Pink, while the timothy and heather, pewter And tin. The air, filled with the scent of dust Rising, sticky in the heat. Grasshoppers dart Across […]
GEOMETRY
Who decided that every snowflake would have six points? Or, that the mourning dove would always lay two eggs in each clutch? Why not three? Why not one? Halite, common table salt, is composed of perfect cubes. The cup of a tulip is shaped like a star. It’s all math, you see? But where did […]
THE NIGHT HUNTER’S RISE
It starts with the moths sipping at nectar under the moon and then the bats gobbling up the moths etcha-sketching their way across the sky snatching at dusty wings the Great Horned owl propels its warrior’s cape while far below a raccoon rattles the latch on a rickety gate off in search of gourds by […]