Origins

poetry
I was told that one of the old gods appeared to my mother as a turkey while she planted hyacinths at her parents’ graves. He chased her out of the…

Convincing

poetry
    At the Poetry Center in 1971, B.F. Skinner, founder of radical behaviorism, responded to a poem called “Verbal Behavior,” named after his book that says we should remember…

Low Tide

poetry
I need to tell you + this is Maine. The woman prattling incessantly next to me + with a smoky New England cackle blotting out her husband John’s one-word encouragements,…

Moons

poetry
  +++ for Chen Chen A fathom used to mean the furthest distance a person could reach. A yawn—like chasm, chaos, or hiatus—is another name for space. Chiasma: inside the…

Crack

poetry
  • One of my dad’s favorite jokes starts like this: “I can’t believe they got back together after all that shit!” • Some nights he just left, and when…

Cathexis Blues

poetry
    Like a curse, I am drawn to my bookshelf, to the title page of Motherless Brooklyn. Here, I find your name and number written in the left- hand…

Petals in Dust

poetry
Around fullness you barely knew from noon the late light falling in cinched with red southing shadows ++ along a yard ++ maybe mine in the hardening dim ++ a…

Sturgeon in the Land of the Nautilus

poetry
  +++ some women are born in flight a first flush summer in memory it seemed to have never rained you were warm like the walkways red under chinaberries swollen…

Flannery O’Connor’s Singles Ad

poetry
    Single white alienated female seeking a companion to stroll the dark night of her soul. Be advised, this is not a sexcapade. And aside from my knack for…

Omen for Moving Too Fast

poetry
  The woodpecker that ran into my window is dead If only I knew taxidermy, I could bring it back to life Up close, each feather looks hand-carved, like the…

carrion girl

poetry
  At the estate sale, 70s porn fold-outs drape over the bedspread. When you’re dead, everything is laid out for sale, even your porn. The man running the sale tells…

Death Drive

poetry
  1. In the graphic novel the hero drives death the way a rancher drives livestock. Four-legged, voids pour from the hillsides—the shape, not the shadow, of extinction. 2a. +++++++…