Ursa Minor
There is a scar on your inner thigh, that looks like a bear, and when I traipse my index finger too close, you go rowr. Always Ray, always. I walked up Lexington…
in memory of someone who may not be dead
for lillaree she was getting her doctorate on the last island she owns in my memory’s receding fogbank. it’s been thirteen years and i’d always figured…
Apologia, America
Listen: it’s raining ash. The one holding his nose tight in blueish kleenex is your dead neighbor’s only certified son, heir to eleven thumbs and…
Inheritances
I. My paternal grandmother lived in a brick ranch, with white trim and black shutters that didn’t close, in a small Ohio town. Her house was two doors down…
Hunter
She is serenity. A portrait fixed with a face like the Middle Pacific; cold and beckoning. As the frosted dirt cracks beneath my small feet, beneath layers of dead…
Barnlights
Those fireflies spark in the hum and burr of twilight, when our legs begin to itch from the day's rambles. Chiggers and tall grass have left their mark, a…
De Consolatione ad Kamil: On Death
I was three years old, the youngest of three, when my father passed away in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. I have no recollection of him. Any remainders are memories of memories,…
The Red Curtain
James Madigan got out of the car and looked around. To his right he could see the imprints left where children had frolicked and carved out snow angels. The hollows…
last day
It’s not just that feeling of escaping something that opens up your chest, or the closure that lends rhythm to seasons of life: after spring, the long slow breath.…
Coming Home
Three hours and ten minutes before I can leave. Outside, it’s your favourite time of day. Those early hours that neither truly belong to night nor day when the…
hecate #1
undeath is in creation / and the degloving of hands / digging up of pale yellow talisman / kiss of moonlight through the willow branches / fade / d / undeath…
Original Wisdom
My grandparents’ kitchen was indelibly turquoise their laminate countertops hosted black currant jam parties berries picked, cooked, poured into paraffin topped…
At the 50th
Harvard College Reunion, Class of 1958 Adrift between symposia and seminars, a drizzle of reverie on Bow Street, aimless nostalgia graying in droplets of fog. At…
With Or Without You
I remember the way February looks after midnight— jigsaw lines of houses, small front yards the rain crawling along the ground, turning to ice speaking blacktop…
Under the Catalpa Tree
I see it there knowing full well its cycled presence through daily passing. The wide green expanse a guardian canopy. And think, I’d like to lie out under…
The Small River in the Gutter
There is this small river shaped like a gutter near my childhood home. It runs along a centenarian railroad, made of dry wood (with funny knots in it). Walking…
Village Road
Here, a village road, darkly quiet, winds under sunset’s opal sky, wisps tinged turquoise green, rose, tint the low horizon. Here, a country lake, old…
Remember That You Are Dust
I crawl into your photograph, inch open the cupboard behind your shoulder, pull out a chipped glass kept for summer root beer. I hate your diet kind. Tastes like…
Remembrance
Loneliness has found me In the stillness of the night I reach to touch your hand... But your heart has taken flight. This lonely place was once a home So…