25. The wise shun me

poetry
  智者君抛我, 愚者我抛君。 非愚亦非智, 从此断相闻。 入夜歌明月, 侵晨舞白云。 焉能拱口手, 端坐鬓纷纷。   The wise shun me. I shun the fools. But I’m neither foolish nor wise, so I break off contact. At…

Epistle to the Turin Horse

poetry
  Dear furred tongue, dear slack tongue of the coach, dear set piece in the apocryphal lore of a mad philosopher, you were flogged mercilessly at Piazza Carlos Alberto for…

Pear Graft

poetry
  To hack an ode from a 40-year-old tree, you must spare the lower branches so they can care for roots while the new variety takes hold. Scions dislike the…

Atlantis

poetry
  and the clouds keep coming   and the brook is overflowing   and raindrops keep falling   on my head but it’s no longer   the same tune and…

East Coast Sad

poetry
  Solstice dark, four-thirty. Gray rain on the gray cedar shingles, salt box slope. Why do we come home? Dark chocolate Raisinets—long matinee on Scottish monarchs, heavy-handed with the blood…

West Coast Sad

poetry
  Dry bright. The self’s asymmetry with its surroundings—squirrels deadlifting pinecones heavy with sap. Ponderosa sad. Steak buffet sad. The snakes don’t want to kill you, but will—Erin’s boyfriend calls…

Sacrosanct

poetry
  Don’t say there is raw fish on the table a boning knife.   The sun is leaving the broken boughs.   With you in the black hole of object…

Sputter

poetry
  There were times we lost track. That’s for sure. One season came with sugar runs for the bees. Another found us coupling at the foot of a mountain like…

Riddler

poetry
  No, not a cartoon villain, but the only one left to make champagne fermented in a barrel. Even in California, no one wants to spend the time on such…

Ocularist

poetry
  The difference is between seeing and looking. By painting   artificial eyes, I can’t allow people to see, but I can change   how they look. As a child,…

Inner-City Mentor Program Tours Local College

poetry
  Like you, they’d heard the stories. They stood by a founder’s statue in Faculty Glade. Terms— institute, benefit—were tossed at them. Nothing about conquest, or captives. No questions. Attention…

Then There

poetry
  This spring we planted again, turned the earth and pushed the seeds into the ground with our thumbs just deep enough, then covered them with the compost loam that…