Why was Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 my favorite piece to play when I was ten and always dreading practicing the piano? Was it the melody—his melancholy lines, like verse,…

  A brave people, who sat up straight in the grave, with only this perforated sacred bowl to protect their heads from the sad hail of dirt clods dropped by…

for Mark Green   This is therefore the intensest rendezvous. It is in that thought that we collect ourselves, Out of all the indifferences, into one thing. --Wallace Stevens  …

  "I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer grey skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are grey," Zubair, a 13 year-old Pakistani boy…

  Sleek starlings flying low over whitecaps on the bay remind me of Ortygia, so far from where I am, exactly where I wish to stroll the white stones of…

  It was a lonely farm in Prescott for a live girl, somewhat notorious        lewd        horse trader a restless wire humming up her spine.…

  Nights Daddy didn't come, our mother turned down the roast and set out crayons. My sister peeled the rind from a color called flesh. I chose periwinkle like his…

  I’m learning to collect poisonous plants to help preserve what little food I have left. In my small hollow a few inches of edible leaves insects and their dried…

for Mark Green   This is therefore the intensest rendezvous. It is in that thought that we collect ourselves, Out of all the indifferences, into one thing. Wallace Stevens Why…

  Dozens of half- bitten Ginger Golds sit cast around the pond because I tossed them there. How difficult it seems to walk through this orchard without eating and ditching.…

  Quiet, these nights. Perched on the satin spread quilted and draped over the corner of the bed, queen-­sized. She plants her feet, picks tiny socks like beans off the trellis. Spun cotton her cash crop these days. She pairs them, folding the ankles one over the other. Precision, care, the mantle of motherhood. Perhaps an hour more before the sidewall scrapes the curb cut, the heavy door opens, the work boots stamp through shallow puddles, brown pine needles. Drained amber bottles muddle his thoughts. Still straddling a bar stool, he is safe and so are they. Later, fists and spittle will strafe walls, headboard, wife. Later, she will blot the blood from the house dress. Later, scrub the grease and food stains that radiate out, night-­blooming. Now, the halo of name brand bleach fills her nose. Now, bright rompers glow under lamplight. Before she sleeps, she lines the hall a basket for each child, fleet bracing for the squall.

If I had drunk more milk as a girl the magpies who settle in the brush wouldn’t mock me, the bats wouldn’t eat out my eyes as I fall asleep…