Earrings I Never Wear
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…
If I Were a Fisherman’s Wife
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…
Willamette
1 —What about here? I ask; brief shore; old blanket we slept under in Genesis; its skin of ripples, the river; out of the basket, sourdough, cheddar, plums. How can…
Giotto Blue
The faces in Giotto’s Massacre of the Innocents in Scrovengi Chapel, must have been what the faces of mothers in Sarajevo looked like after a massacre during the Siege. They…
Yellow Door in Open Field
The door in the field is held upright by my saying so. Frogs before storm, wind on the rise. The door opens and I still can’t see what lies on…
Memento Park, Hungary
On the Buda side the gypsies have no one left to steal from. They burn trash at night, sending yellow smoke into the subway. They leave handprints on the tiled…
Finding My Way
I want to find the way of the ants, how they build dirt mounds out of human flesh, how they destroy and then carry the little corpses of leaves and…
Mal de Ojo
Toward evening When I grow bored I try to imagine my killer —“Toward Evening,” Novica Tadić The evil eye was born at the same time as light. Let there be…
The Stableboy
The stableboy leads, drives on the chestnut horse. Tears form in the tear ducts of the horse’s eye. In the silent swamp the dry reeds clatter like a pilgrim’s staff.…
It’s Autumn
“It’s autumn,” I write, and a boat without sails arhythmically scrapes at my heart— as long as it can. All the cards have been played, and the hand-made rock fountains,…