Down in the cellar there's a household god. He is drinking up the planet. He has little eyes in his belly, Which are his thoughts, Evidence that he may…

  Last night a storm gleaned the last leaves from trees in our courtyard, made a chartreuse cemetery on mulch, exposing ribs of houses once hidden behind profuse canopies. Like…

  In the U-Haul leaving Chicago, we traverse the tall scaffold of the Indiana Skyway. I reach out the window for something concrete, pull back my hand to find candle…

  Snakes in the tall grass, sprinklers ticking the first time he forced my head underwater.   I counted seconds in the blue, planetary flecks on the concrete wall underwater.…

  Snakes in the tall grass, sprinklers ticking the first time he forced my head underwater.   I counted seconds in the blue, planetary flecks on the concrete wall underwater.…

  The scavenger coyotes come at hunters’ shots. My father relates these snippets on the drive to a refuge for an afternoon walk.   I notice, on the middle seat…

The will of the tine shall break the soil into lines of seed   seeds   small as beads of sweat   to roll   & neaten our broken soil                    to rise from…

  All day, blue mustangs of clouds charge from west to east, unfinished bodies over us. Though they aren’t animals,   we are, and see equine jawbones in the vapors,…

  My brain can barely fathom him at all. After the usual kiss, he fades away. But when I wake him he wants me to stay so I do.  He…

  Off the path: the demolished hospital’s littered ravine. Single yellow bricks stamped: Standard Steel, West Branch. Broken plates, the bottom of a mug. Jars, jars, jars, like larvae emerging…

  now you are darker than I can believe it is not wisdom that I have come to with its denials and pure promises but the absences I cannot set…

  The ear is the last face. —Emily Dickinson   Now the owl comes to my sleep, unbidden. I take its call, sculpted and clear, in to the immensity inside…