Grandmother
Everything surprises me: that she called for me, that I am here. What we failed at in life is done. Now she lets me grab her shoulder, …
Getting the Melons to Market
The hot summer long —we loaded truck beds with watermelons, our rough hands soothed by the cool green rivers in their skins, then stood guard, armed…
Deliverance
Fear made us little children: If they catch you, they’ll cut off your nose and ears. If you’re a girl, they’ll rape you. So out of the cave’s bombed…
Procession
mistranslation after Rilke When song arrived like an ungainly bird, the light inert, the light wide open shut, the…
Fable of the Alternative Fact
for Alan Soldofky A slick slug comes to glisten in the ear. It slides where once a wary owl would perch To scan what seemed an overlay of…
Lundi Gras at Commander’s Palace
for Billy, Nikki, Josey, Rosie, and Pearl We drink good whiskey under the magnolia trees, talk about how the dead can’t see how great life gets. What a…
European Stag Beetle
Because you swarm when the sky turns heavy, we call you thunderdoll and kill you to protect our thatch then we snap your heads and slip them in…