Self-portrait
Let the wind whip a canvas with coffee grounds and leaves, the easel upright on a porch with boards missing like molars. Give the wind time and pigment: the…
Hallucination
Another haunting symptom her late Dementia Won’t let me forget. I mean that night I found her Sitting straight up in bed. All glassy-eyed: “Look at him. Oh look…
Head to expose
only after a thorough comparison of clutch and diet, with meager fruit and seed regimens avoided (before I attempt a change of nest) …
Stranded on Old US 1, Appling, Georgia
Steam rose from the old black Ford. You could see where the engine block had cracked, but not where the auto industry hit the wall-- goodbye DeSoto, goodbye Edsel--…
Emendation
I don’t have to go back to my childhood, there’s nothing there I still want: but of miracles left to me, I’d like to restore a look I once…
In the Walk-in
You come from behind— press me up against industrial shelves fingers tacky with sugar my arms full thick bricks of butter tumble when you kiss my neck I tug…
Playing Dead
for my son Graham The room shatters with giggles before your hand’s thin worms burrow my ears. When that fails they hook inside my cheeks and nose.…
Postmortem
In 1793, during the French Revolution, Charlotte Corday was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat. After her head fell into the basket with a sickening thump,…
Meditation
after Baudelaire Settle down now, sadness. It’s time for bed. You asked for evening. Well, here it is. A fine mist covers the city like dread. It…