Knots
Who you are not seldom rises
beyond midnight’s
sum: one strand thrown over
another, looped through
and pulled taut, achieving
tension and a sour taste
at the back of your throat.
Everyone believes this
doesn’t bleed. I lock the
windows, draw the shades,
twist the cord. Even distracted,
nothing comes undone.
“Knots” first appeared here in June 2016.
Roof Charm
What is home if not exile to the familiar?
A serrated kiss at the closet door.
We duck our heads and cook meals undercover,
the sun’s rays deflected.
And every relentless day finds
our hands wanting.
The black shawl, unfolded.
Wax melted on the whetstone.
You say stars shiver despite their light.
You say one hand mirrors its mate’s arc.
I say warmth flows through you, the roof our sky.
“Roof Charm” made its first appearance here in June 2016.
A Brief History of Edges
This road leads nowhere. I live at its end where breezes
wilt and the sun still burns my darkened skin.
I’ve sailed to Oman, but have never seen the Dakotas.
My friend searches for the concealed parable in this truth.
An early clay map depicted Babylon surrounded by a bitter river,
and an island named the sun is hidden and nothing can be seen.
Fitting the limitless within boundaries, she remembers no one.
The lighted sign says boots, but I see books.
Venturing from the shadows, she offers an accord: intersecting borders,
we must retain ourselves, deliver what calls.
In our place between the hidden and the invisible, consider
that neon gas possesses neither color nor odor.
What lives in creases and at the periphery? The isle called beyond
the flight of birds has crumbled from the lower edge.
Where I stand defines my portion of the spherical earth.
Crossing lines, I look to the sky, its bisected clouds.
“A Brief History of Edges” was first published in Literati.
Human Distance
1
Apart from edges, and into deeper darkness,
our scars crawl, remaining aloof.
2
Open windows frame the ache in motion, the
displaced notes between two wavering spaces.
3
Absent light, absent voice. What is the longitude of
grace? Consider errors and their remnants.
4
Navigators measured lunar distance and the height
of two bodies to determine Greenwich time.
5
I study the passing cloud
and its descent, noting the nature of condensation.
6
Desire: the fragmented night and its circumstance.
7
Heavenly form. The moon’s dull glow.
Acquiescence before the body’s silt.
8
Interstellar matter become dust, become
gas, become molecule.
9
Human distance registers no scale.
“Human Distance” was published in Bindlestiff in summer 2016, and has also appeared on this blog.
Morning Covers You
1
We extract
light, bleeding
it out one
diamond-shaped
hole after
another.
Finger the results.
Remediation
in form
or placement
to best
advantage?
At night
loneliness cradles
our bones.
2
You arrange our bodies to greater effect,
presuming lesser horrors
to be less.
A list emerges.
Refuting one,
accepting another.
Choices fixed.
Ecstasies of failure
purged.
Morning covers you
like a blue
shroud, so pale.
So cold
and bitter.
This originally appeared in Boston Poetry Magazine in April, 2014, and on this blog in October 2015.
O at the Edges 