The Separation

  There was a moment when I thought of you, and I longed for water. Two black pitchers laid on the ground in the shadow of what must have been an old well. Their two mouths were crusted with the last snowfall’s ice. Their mouths like two ovals learning how to...

A Poem About Writing Better Poems

  The next time you write about a man speaking to an object, consider whether the object should speak back. Particularly if it is an animal. Particularly if it is a red mongoose who has just defeated two King cobras who learned how to dovetail in the dark....

Your Hands, Like Discarded Feathers

  That morning, you told me you were terrified of poetry as a child. You told me stories of vines, stories of the things that continue to remain. I spent the following days imaging the dark circles left in the woods behind your house, looking in.   *  ...

Apartment-Living

  You turn in your sleep, and it is at times like these when I wish you could wake and listen: I am ill. I know there are times when you lie awake, hearing the sounds of another’s bed, hearing the sounds of children running in the streets after dark. These are...

Ekphrasis

  1.   Create for me a river made of stone so that I may look nothing like you.   2.   One thousand moons. Rutabagas at slumber. Soft birds. Each of these have something in common: They look nothing like you.   3.   A girl runs through an...