Poetry

Verdict HENCEFORTH the peerless jury finds gravity null, unconstitutional—at last hereby nothing binds or keeps us from disanchoring. Sweet revelation! Oh Hurry, good fearless citizens: Annotate the textbooks! Dismantle the roofs and parapets, already we’re unstapling our bones are ruderal dispersing heavenward like...

On Cessation A crow clinging to a reed stabsat little fish. The lake holdsits setting sun a moment longerthan the horizon. Mosquitoes prickwhat bleeds. A...

Landfall I write my name over and over on the surface of water. I write: sleepwalkerbad bitchstar gutssea kittenThe linger of some words on the surfacefreaks me...

This Fear I am the daughtermy mother neverwanted. Trust was an illusion,how the painting of a blue bowlisn’t a bowl of blue flowers.She twisted rags...

The Subject is love. The form is bulbous. There are echoes of horses,of cranes flying low,their throats’ rumbleas they land. There is panic spreadingas you age. There are echoes...

Penelope Walking down a riverbank, Seine or ThamesI stopped to sit in a wrought-iron wafflechair, the kind that leaves its imprint on your skin.Soon the...

My Grandmother's Body When the funeral director comes to retrieve my grandmother’s body, a nighttime response to my aunt’s inevitable call, he wears his funeral-director suit. He leaves the...

My Roommate Quits College and Moves Back Home Out the dorm window I stare atthe mouth of Buick’s trunk largeas the far-off hills of her...

Dedication: To The One I Will Marry Not too long after you tell me about your mother--how she, at 7, lost her father in World...

At the Annual Christmas Party, Grasping a Small Plate of Hors d'oeuvres Our skin sheds in the most inconvenient places. One moment, you are alone in...