Iphigenia in Baltimore
Sing to me, oh Muse, of Beatrice Fleck, thirty-six-year-old virginal fourth-grade teacher, strongest woman alive, and covert writer of erotic novelettes. Unsullied not by choice but by the inscrutable designs…
The Narrow Road to the Monastery
Dear Lightning it was the lightning Lord that knocked the tall firs down One fir on either side Across the narrow road to the monastery / Trapping me there in…
The Stillness
Rolling across the lawn It sometimes stops me dead. My rolling girls stop too, knowing Something’s gone wrong again. One of them, I can’t remember who, Crawls through the grass…
Feldenkrais Class, Jerusalem
I think of David’s rod deep under Silwan— visions of Batsheva mouth to the earth: “Now turn on your right side without thinking of your right side.” My transplanted spine,…
Daffodil Waves
I. “The colline were covered in daffodils,” my Nonna tells me. II. Green grows yellow with swollen seeds. How suddenly they open releasing their egg yolk trumpets. III. I am…
A Ghazal: Intimations of Ghalib
Did I walk from his party, thirsty and dry? If I had quit drinking where was the Saqi? In one shaft, she has the two impaled. First my head, now…
Start My Day
Slate blue clouds, bare trees Standing sentinel: in the air A mild chill. What better day, Dear God, to be alive, to be still.
Almost Paradise
look what you have built: the artificial lagoon (landlocked by dunes, too shallow, but you are the only one bothered by that) imported white-sand beach (upon which sunbathers gather their…
Errors of the Mortals
What I despise are the wrong questions, the requests of the strivers: How much did they pay you? Oh the indignity. How did you meet so-and-so? The stupidity. Please, ask…
Strange Remarks in the Market*
The truth is, you never wanted to be normal; so the wily shoemaker says to me, when I find him transformed, a leather merchant in Verona, cavorting with the sellers…
Statistical High
I couldn’t take it anymore. Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Wolsey, Thomas Howard, Thomas More. It was like all those frickin’ Josés in 100 Years of Solitude. So I put the Toms…