I’m thrilled to have two poems up at Wildness, a topflight journal out of the UK. One of the poems has a curious history – written in 2013, accepted quickly but not published, then rejected sixteen times over the course of seven years before landing at Wildness. Such is my life in poetry…
Many thanks to editor Michelle Tudor for taking these two poems.
Riddle, Dollar, String
Living between, she pretends the comfort of walls
within walls, the unseen’s dispensation.
A slow dragging. The raked leaves.
And all the naked oaks bowing to the wind,
feeling the scratch of impending growth,
the twig’s pearl poised to push through
this mask, stolen sounds dotting the morning.
Later, watching lizards on the wall
or the haze of bees surrounding the agave.
No one pays. Limestone. Mulch. Light.
Unformed thoughts snaking through.
Like that line wrapped around her waist,
another purpose only she could explain.
“Riddle, Dollar, String” first appeared in The New Reader Magazine, in March 2018.
Dry Well
I trace the symbols.
In the dirt, among the grubs and crooked
weeds. Writing of loss. Of missing things.
Wondering if words will fill my mouth
with wool or grit. With pebbles and salt.
If truth is what I want.
* * *
“Dry Well” first appeared in Vox Populi in August 2019. I’m grateful to editor Michael Simms for his steadfast support.
Self-Portrait as Question
Walking hand-in-hand with what,
who presupposes why, and when
huddles with where before skittering
off to its murky corner. Sometimes
I present myself as a shy minute
or a cloud’s effigy streaming across
a scruffy field. Few suspect the truth.
Answers ricochet from the limestone
wall, but no one nabs them. I react
quickly and offer the unknown, the
life I claim, my name, in return.
* * *
“Self-Portrait as Question” was first published in Rue Scribe in September 2018. Many thanks to Eric Luthi and the editors at Rue Scribe for accepting this piece and several others.
Before September
In that before-September haze I knew
the birds’ names but not their language,
I saw green in the distance while grass
grew tall and light never lingered.
Questions cratered my moons. Answers
hid between sunbursts. My lips formed
soundless words and glass crunched
underfoot everywhere I walked.
Nothing sparkled under the skies.
Even gemstones and feathers in morning
dew dulled the day’s arc, printing
their notes of lonesome protest in rock
shade and tree droop, in acquiescence,
in quietude. And then you spoke.
* * *
“Before September” first appeared in The Field Guide Poetry Magazine. Thank you to editor Amanda Marrero for taking this piece.
Self-Portrait as Glass
Find form in chaos, precision
in the random. This door,
this flask, this lens. A jar
on the hill. I look through
and see myself staring back,
thinking of sand and salts
and the durability of love
in this transparent world.
But I am obsidian, a dark
iris of volcanic fire and
debris. Try as you will,
you’ll never touch my light
.
“Self-Portrait as Glass” first appeared in Windows Facing Windows Review.
Letter to a Ghost
Had I not dreamed your death, I would have praised this day.
Your name rests in a wooden box on a desk
in a room far away and twice as old as we were then.
My penance in this phase: to continue.
I gather words close and refrain from admissions.
The clock on the wall seldom chimes,
like one whose vows circumvent convenience, or
a shade allowing the barest sliver of light
through the window. That tock preceding
a long silence. Snow blanketing the mounded earth.
Your scent never lingers past sleep, where you remain.
At last I no longer covet those sheets you’ve shared.
Your name rests in a box. I gather words and refrain.
“Letter to a Ghost” last appeared herein 2017.
Poem Swallowing Itself
Reading aloud—
people turn their heads
and step back, never
imagining what lies behind,
expecting neither snakes
nor bear traps nor other ambush.
Beginning where one ends, or
continuing a conversation
over decades, the truth
rises then subsides,
like soaring vultures or
cubes in scotch whiskey.
Measuring volume by
glance, the poem shivers,
opens its mouth wide.
“Poem Swallowing Itself” first appeared here in April 2016.
Never Drink Anything Blue
But always keep your options unzipped and
available to whatever slips in; the snake
lives in the attic for the rodents,
but occasionally takes a fledgling peewee
from a nest near its exit, while the scorpion
generally avoids light except for those nights
when moths seem too delectable to pass up.
Our governor whistles Beethoven but switches to
the hymnal when campaigning, and I’ve announced
a need for organic zucchini when craving a craft
beer. Confession is good for the soul, except
when it’s bad for the body. “Think with words,
not with ideas,” Sontag wrote, and Williams said
“no idea but in things.” Of course he was just writing
a poem. Baking is chemistry – measure carefully –
but cook with abandon! Whoever said “keep your
friends close but your enemies closer,” slept
alone most nights, or not at all. Born in Louisiana,
I am the product of an illegal union, but which
half should be interred where? Both sun and
moon rise and set. Is anything incorruptible?
Drink everything blue. Everything.
“Never Drink Anything Blue” was drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30/30 Project, and appeared here in March 2016. Many thanks to Stop Dragging the Panda, who sponsored and provided the title.
Acceptance Charm
She’ll take the river’s trace
over curl and leaf
and the street’s
dead end,
riveting eyes
even as they blink.
The narcotic’s benediction.
Renewal. Sleep.
That bed remains unmade,
stripped of purpose: no
caress a thigh would
recognize
dark fingers writing in air
“Acceptance Charm” last appeared here in April 2018.
O at the Edges 