A Ghazal: Intimations of Ghalib

poetry
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

poetry
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

poetry
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

poetry
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…

Women

poetry
Of course there are nights when I crave a woman— Of course the hardness of the road gets to me, Of course I feel the Roman stones beneath my sandals,…

Strange Remarks in the Market*

poetry
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

poetry
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…

Good Egg

poetry
The threading finally shot on the window crank, I disassemble the unit and out falls a tiny egg, like a porcelain ball bearing. It may have been there for years.…

Earrings I Never Wear

poetry
In a small Bolivian town on a narrow cobblestone path, a woman in a black bowler hat and white embroidered blouse sits at a tiny tin table in front of…

M-16

poetry
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become…

If I Were a Fisherman’s Wife

poetry
Our grey home was visited last night by a storm. I woke to a green sky standing at my window. I told the storm it could not enter. My husband…