Convincing
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…
Cathexis Blues
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
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
+++ 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
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
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
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
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. +++++++…