Due Date

  The act is violent, the tearing open, the skin. I imagine bird claws, the talons, a wind breaking open between two buildings. The mouth, agape. And the arrival. Two shadows.     August 20, 2014, MLT  ...

I Am Running Out of Poems.

  And then I look to the fall trees, and I wonder if they ever think, “I am running out of leaves.” They probably do, they with their tall, scarred bodies, launching outward and up. Sometimes, they are probably dreaming, or worse, waking. They open their eyes to...

Searching Tide Pools for Shore Crabs

  Crab is such an ugly word—the hard k, its suddenness. I’m steeped in these small pools, or perched on the surrounding rocks and sand, one hole after the next, searching for shore crabs, carcinus maenas. I find their gray and tan bodies, slick with the...

Garden Stems

  I go out into the world, looking for strawberries like the ones from my mother’s garden. They were small and firm, sweet but bitter, dirt caught in the leaves and deeper pits. We plucked them fresh from their stems and ate them before cleaning them, the dirt...