One Minnesota Winter
I craved the taste of orange-
flavored baby aspirin. In fact,
my mother caught me
standing on top of the toilet
to open the mirrored door
Category / Poetry
Dirty Water
At the final turn of winter, I saw a man
snap his car door open at a stop light, press
a fist’s worth of burger wrappers and the squared
plastic from cigarette packs onto the snow-sheened
pavement, snap his car door shut, and drive off.
On Politeness
Mothers run towards the trucks
and the soldiers, barrels-up
to sunlight, ride in the back.
They have never been so
hungry—
Lost
In June fog, I am an empty boat,
weathered, one oar lost,
at the center of a fathomless lake.
On a warm July morning,
I am a blue canoe far from the sea—
Stir Crazy
Eight days of rain and he’s climbing the door jambs,
bare feet and spine wedged against the molding,
clothing strewn below.
He inches up: Mommy, look at me!
Going out doesn’t help.
Continue reading… "Stir Crazy"Park Bench Behind the Diamond
On the other side,
of the viridescent fence—
upturned chain-link at the feet
trench too small
for our torn
The Fourth Wall
I can recall when the first wall
came down
it was unexpected
how the sunlight barged in
from where it was not
A Basin
The bees are washing themselves in honey
All night I listened through a cloth sack
A song of sour bread dunked into wine
Dark handful of grapes heavy a breast sweeter
Than ripe carried like a black sugar to the mouth
Mugabe Rejects Charges that Detainees Are Tortured
The government thought we were terrorists
because we looked at a house. White people
would never live in such a house, they thought.
My parents were held for hours, questions,
questions, questions.
Gift Day
I made it to work
But my car did not.
Yet I only had to walk
half a block
in the below zero air