Reading Mary Ruefle

  WASPS’ NEST   The empty, almost weightless, onionated brain. Planet-on-a-branch. The first lantern to glow in space when Wang Bo thought, I’ll look a little closer I’ll lift this flame inside. His footsteps. His panting. His words of announcement: how...

Two Prose Poems

  GUN CONTROL I want the swans back— the father’s wide beak, the wings spread and beating down into the water, telling the water to stay down, all before leading his wife and two young through the reeds and on to the other side of the Bay. (If I had known,...

Miscommunication

                                         —A Misreading of Robert Creeley’s “For No Clear Reason”*   I dreamt last night the fridge was over, that its...

The Healer

  One night a group of people sent a woman to my house who wanted to touch everyone. Her skin was dark, the moon’s blue hues on her shoulders. She braided my hair, and all through the night her mouth moved in another language. No sound came from those lips. I...