Dry Cabin
Between spokes of a spring-borne bicycle,
the redpolls peck at snow,
foraging through clumped leaf chaff for seeds.
The bicycle’s purple,
a pedal permafrosted, its tires flat.
Category / Poetry
Threshold
on sidewalks slick with rotting leaves
we wait for a freight train to pass
don’t oversleep
we will meet in the middle
of an empty room
in a town of hard shadows
windshield glare and drooping vines
“Take your broken heart and make it into art” — Carrie Fisher
Make wallpaper of your greatest losses,
the smallest saved to decoupage
a Pandora-proof box
Sew a quilt from a sundress
tattered at the hem like a failed affair
or the first pair of shorts you ever bled through
Deathbed Drawing of Keats by Joseph Severn
The large shadow sets off the pallor of his face,
his death the dark companion on his pillow.
Can he have been this beautiful?
Curls clinging to his forehead, the sensuous mouth, straight nose
under his high brow, lashes against his cheek?
To the Light
Because of,
or perhaps despite
my whisperings,
the African violet thrives.
When I woke this morning,
Continue reading… "To the Light"Communion
I kneel among gilded Virgins and kindly Josephs
ready to receive the body of Christ.
A flat white circle sucks moisture from my mouth,
tongue probes for Jesus in the scraps
of wafer sticking to my palate.
Lapse
lack of a plan felt like reason enough
to follow half-truths as if they were favors
sandwiches assembled on a plywood scrap
by whoever sat in the passenger seat
The Taste of Praise
In my primary-colored garden
of yeladim where we crayola’d
stick-people portraits of Judah Maccabee
and his muscled bros, Moses crossing
the Sea of Reeds, or Jonah cowering
in the belly of a lumpy, grinning whale,
every Bible story seemed to share
Christmas Break
The South Shore Train leaves in the morning.
One night to bear the dorm’s unnatural silence.
This first real snowfall of the season builds slowly.
Outlines etched on bare trees.
You’ve told your first almost real love goodbye.
Nothing’s bound to change. The sky begins to drop.
Meditations
1
All afternoon doing nothing, the jade plant and I.
Don’t say we’re wasting our lives.
Seventeen crows have crossed the window: one trailing a silver
ribbon clenched in a fist.
One with a pane of grey sky where a wingfeather was.
Continue reading… "Meditations"