Insomnia
Lying awake
at two in the morning,
wondering
how a dog would suffer
sleeplessness –
silently, or with little
growls and snuffles,
scratching at its
padded bed
in exasperation,
circling, turning
back, again.
I roll to the left,
then to the right,
and flat on my back,
groaning at the pain
in my hip and the anger
of the day’s impending
bull on my shoulders,
and the looming
banshee cry
of that damned alarm.
The Gift
What lasts longer than ink
or stone or a pond’s ripple?
I want to give you
the deepest green.
Memory circles back,
highways turn
to dirt, the dead blossom
in children’s voices.
Place this carnation in a vase.
Swallow these pills.
Don’t move, don’t speak.
Let me do this.
“The Gift” was first published in Brave Voices in January 2019.Many thanks to Audrey Bowers and her editorial staff for taking this piece.
Self-Portrait as Wave
Feeling limited, I succumb to surge,
disperse, reassemble, return
in the calming swirl. Nothing
resembles me. I relinquish this piece,
retain that, and reinforced,
reside in the whorl, swollen,
winnowed to a point and capped,
roar and rumble, shredded,
whole yet apart, a solitary
fist crashing through another
watery torso in response, in
resonance, again, again.
“Self-Portrait as Wave” was first published in the inaugural issue of Kissing Dynamite. Many thanks to editor Christine Taylor for taking this piece.
Another Bird, Rising
The shadow behind you slides over
the ceiling, up and gone,
a wingless silence. The drafted swirl.
One morning shifts into two, and still
you won’t give in, each moment’s
gasp another one earned, a measurable
notch on the table’s edge, quarters
in the magic purse. They all count.
Pills, chemo, radiation. Ocean to sky.
Houses to ash. Your eyes see black.
“Another Bird, Rising” first appeared in deLuge in fall 2016.
Inscrutable
The river fills her body
like handwriting on a scrap
folded into a book
and found years later.
No one reads that language.
Undiscovered,
she remains closed, cleansed,
awaiting interpretation.
* * *
“Inscrutable” was first published in Volume 3, Issue 1 of Ink in Thirds. Thank you, Grace Black, for taking this piece!
As the Gravy Flows
Viscosity is always a consideration, as is definition:
traditionally a sauce composed of meat juices and
thickeners, or, a sediment of melted tallow, which
somehow brings to mind a laborer rising early after
a hard night, eating red-eye, made of fried ham
drippings and coffee, served over grits. Or perhaps
an egg gravy – a béchamel sauce flavored by bacon,
with water and milk, and an egg – ladled over butter-
rubbed biscuits. But then I picture my vegetarian
friends pushing away from plates of this fine repast,
and not wishing to deny them or those following a vegan
lifestyle, we turn to roasted vegetables with broth, oils
and wine and a savory yeast extract. But I can’t fathom
a life without giblet gravy, which features the neck and
offal of fowl, including the liver, the taste of which may
be too strong for other recipes using giblets, an interesting
word in itself, from the Old French for a game-bird stew,
and the Middle English meaning of an inessential
appendage, or entrails, morphing to garbage. I would
never throw out an onion gravy, essentially a thick sauce
of slow-cooked onion and stock or wine, and admit to
having tasted a cream version with the consistency and
flavor of diluted paste, indicating a lack of balance in
flavor and poor roux-making technique. My favorite
would be an Italian-American buddy’s gravy, his word
for a rich ragù of sausage, braised beef and shredded
pork, red wine, tomatoes and herbs, served over pasta.
This of course stretches the definition of the word, but
language is elastic, is it not? So it flows, as does the gravy.
“As the Gravy Flows” was drafted during the August 2016 30/30 Challenge. Thank you to Lady Phoenix for sponsoring the poem and providing the title!
Simplify, as in Forget
To turn off the stove
or close the refrigerator door,
such brazen attempts to win
the aging contest or blur the mirror
of clarity — you won’t say
which to blame or praise
or whether intent is implicit in
action or if I should hold my breath.
What is the freezing point of love?
When you were cold, whose
belly did you curl into, whose ear
gathered your breath and returned it
warm and with the promise of bees
producing honey? Your name floats
above my outstretched hand,
and unable to grab it, I blink and turn
away. Nothing works as it should.
I exhale. You push the door shut.
* * *
“Simplify, as in Forget” first appeared in the print journal Good Works Review in February 2018, and is included in the anthology Lost & Found: Tales of Things Gone Missing, Wagon Bridge Publishing, 2019.
My poems “Letter to Chopra from the Dung Beetle’s Star” and “Even as It Drowns” are up at Orangepeel Mag.
Echo Charm
Right on left, or returned
what circles back, unbroken
yet opened?
Your mouth centers me.
Diminished, I rise, listening.
Grass rubbing against grass.
The lizard’s scarlet throat, swelling.
Not refusal, but denial.
Eyes the color of blood.
You practice your words carefully,
repeating each special phrase.
Blood the color of sky.
Sky the color of eyes.
And always the warm shade.
How do we poets measure success? When I first started writing I believed that getting a handful of poems published in journals would provide that measure. Within a couple of years that belief morphed into publishing in better journals, and perhaps someday having editors ask to see my work. Then I thought chapbook publication would indicate achievement, as would having work accepted by a few “unattainables” — those journals that publish “THE GREATS,” not mere mortals like us. And of course winning contests and prizes would prove real success, as would full-length book publication. I’ve checked off all of those standards but one — full-length book publication — and still feel, well, lacking. The goal line keeps shimmering ahead, and likely always will. All this is to say that I have three poems up at Evergreen Review, an unattainable if ever there was. I must admit to feeling a moment of panic when Evergreen Review poetry editor Jee Leong Koh’s announcement email arrived this morning. “Are these poems good enough?” I asked myself. “Who am I, and how the hell did I ever think my work belonged there?” As I said, the goal line keeps moving, and I don’t know if true success in the poetry world, whatever that is, will ever welcome me. But this morning’s breakfast of pancetta-scrambled eggs and toast was delicious, if I say so myself. So I have that!
O at the Edges 