Poetry

                                       I make an altar in my office. A low bench, perhaps                                        something a father made, a candlestick holder I                                        found on the street by my sister’s house, a candle                                        that smells like winter, a houseplant, a bowl of                                        scraps, a photograph of my grandmother. I am                                        just a woman, […]

This blue cheek is what happens  when you crunch potato crisps too loudly.   This arm is what happens  when you spill milk on the linoleum floor.   This hair tuft is what happens  when you don’t move fast enough.   This eye is what happens when you don’t answer the second time.   This leg is what happens when you mouth  back […]

Positioning an Estrogen patch on your ass becomes, after a time, a quick trick in the mirror and every Sunday is a new one with alcohol wipes (the sting becoming, after weeks, a friend) and of course, no one can see changes in a few small months, or really even years, but this white little […]

We are back at the apartment before darkness truly settles. The empty bottle. Your empty glass. The potatoes rupturing in butter. Beneath a crisp toss of cumin you ask had I heard the violins? but quietly—so I hear it as violence. How perfectly it fits below the eyes of the palm-yellow warbler last of its […]

Today I’ll dig myself a Barbie Dreampool to celebrate my pink -coming. I know that for a girl the pool will gleam electric, the sun will burn a tangerine beach ball in the sky. It’s summer now: my wants are hot. I’d puff my lungs with cotton candy just to float on top. Now a girl, I’ll need a boy to fan me by the pool. I want him new—still […]

Like a parable or a past participle we had been naked in the lake  near where those two girls had died. That same   summer standing in line for an ice cream,  a friend of a friend who knew them said so.   So. What to say except that the lake was shallow  at first and we went in at […]

Grayhead, avalanche, leilani: our family portraits showcase brilliant florets, how we speak love with our bell-shaped tongues.           How long we’ve persisted         and thrived with proud stems         towering in tallgrass prairie.         Forgive me now for conjuring   unblooming, the imagery of bouquets pulled and withered. Thrashing blight hitting its peak. Forgive me thinking that more […]

I have only seen one goat in real life but know I want one as a pet. I have seen more elephants at the zoo, they have four, but they are too big. I hate wearing shorts and I won’t wear them at the beach. I love when wet sand crusts my feet. I love […]