In Her Eyes

poetry
  After 90—a little bird-like cocking of her head to gather what she could from the periphery.   Her eager pupilage, dulled.   Retinas—their rites by rote, their prayers for…

Fortune

poetry
  Madame Maman at the kitchen table, in turban and curlers,   reading the cards. Clucks and sighs suggest my stint on earth gets grim.   She won’t say how…

Ping

poetry
  Fear yields the perfect ping of a wine glass in a war zone, magnifies anemones into fields of enemies. In case of emergency it breaks your skin.   Shrapnel…

Advice

poetry
  Small creature                   running through the burning grass,         you will be of use. In the old language,                   there was nothing but simple words,                  …

The Door

poetry
  When you come to a door, do not think you need to open it. When the door is a man, close it. When the door is a man, rub…

Mooring

poetry
  You’ll come to learn that my father left me when I was a child & your father’s father died in a Berlin prison. We exchanged these stories the night…

Ode on a Mountain

poetry
  Caught in the thought-tangled thicket The ram by its horns grows weary: How begin to die? A child no longer A child asks his question to the stone He…

The Narrow Road to the Monastery

poetry
Dear Lightning it was the lightning Lord that knocked the tall firs down One fir on either side Across the narrow road to the monastery / Trapping me there in…

The Stillness

poetry
Rolling across the lawn It sometimes stops me dead. My rolling girls stop too, knowing Something’s gone wrong again. One of them, I can’t remember who, Crawls through the grass…