selected poetry
spiral
She
curves
and flits
fluently,
a silver specter.
She flickers. She’s been here before.
Her flares unbalance you; fierce static pricks you. Your parched eyes
bug and blink. She does a lithe fly-by, low and stealthy, trailing
your sightline, a star
shaped from dazzling ancient explosions. She hovers and pulses.
Light is now sound is flavor on your tongue is hope that she
will not disappear,
which she does, when she sees you seeing her. You have learned
about this in school. You remember that geometry
can spill her into light you will never be able to see.
She’s been here before. You think that means she’ll come back.
the mason
maintains his wall with
baggage - and broken - words he’s
etched into heartstones
the wall
does not hinder true
wild climbers - intrepid, sure,
silent - up, and up
the ladybug
seems to say: watch me -
stones are not storms - bold red queen
bearing luck - and love
the mason, the wall, and the ladybug
span realms: she rests, red,
atop gray stone - when rain comes,
he holds out his hand
Queen of tenth grade geometry
Queen of tenth grade geometry
Queen of tenth grade geometry
Crown atilt, she perches
Lightly, edge of seat -
Pencil sharp, she draws two lines:
One angle, right and neat.
She won't ever tell us
Why bright eyes go dark.
(Royals must comport themselves
When calculating arcs).
Might we see a knight there?
Guarding, as she goes -
Floating down the corridor
And gazing at her toes.
Our solitary sovereign,
Laptop spangled, bright -
Who turns in homework right on time;
Will not go home tonight.
september fire
Queen of tenth grade geometry
Queen of tenth grade geometry
Explicit instructions free him
from third period biology.
By alphabet, he is posted
behind her copper skin, teenage
dignity balled in fists. Roll call:
here, she says - here, he sways.
The bucket brigade of loud boys
she will love before Halloween
shout and break rules. He will
save her. Wrists twitch in
rehearsal: smash glass and
pull. This is not a drill.
d'un certain âge
Fine childbearing hips -
he smiled the nice smooth words, he
meant look at them real, round and rich
rich, I thought yes, but for who then, for
bearing of child, then, just the one, hips
so womanly solid and softly denied now.
Now he meant hips to suit a hungry man -
hands, mouth said it, eyes meant that sound
between murky moan and low hum,
hum of the rattly fan that cools at night
so catch my hips in motion now, watch how
I close the door even with my hands full
full of all the hours when I meant to say here
come closer, come see, hours I stood expectant,
ascendant, free, and fine.
hollows
You are sixteen and you are served a single lamb’s heart, satiny
and lustrous, arranged on a silver tray like supper for the sick.
You snap on safety-blue gloves, press the empty chambers,
take up the knife, wonder at how your smooth slicing
satisfies. You record your observations: size of a fist, whitish,
resilient. You use your blue fingers to trace bloodpaths
that warmed its undead softness. You’ve known them: carelessly
alive, white hearts yet red, filling and emptying. You wonder:
how long since this pith was full inside its frame, unwitting
and loose, its thick hollows swelling, resting and flushing?
You lay down your knife beside the abandoned chambers.
Metal rings. Meager air disperses. All sense disheartens.
perfect possibility
one clean floor, one last rock
one plate to put away, now
one still moment to know
this firm, final pang
of you, stepping as surely
as I could ever have wished
as my most perfect possibility
to learn and long and fail
in cycles of evening gold
and morning blue-gray
I see you now settled,
or searching
or troubled
and choosing
a summer stream, a ridge, a fight
a love
over and over again, seasons
of your own turning
to some end presupposed
as all you can see is yours now
as you were never forever mine
the oracle's Daughter
After William Stafford, “COMING BACK”
My father, for a living, saw into people’s souls.
What I see is more like shell-game sharpness.
I signed on to his tenderness but not
the oracle-ness, the soothing-saying of his:
“you are beautiful and whole.”
I am wholly beautiful.
And the soothing oracle saying - this
tenderness I did not co-sign. I
see, sharp shell-like, a game
for living souls. My father saw people.
four haiku
packaging
wrap the mugs with care
she loved them all equally
even the cracked ones
relics
butterflies and birds
in paintings of sad children
live longer than you
you
laughed all the way down
the stairs of our shared castle
just to dance with me
damages
give me a number
in terms of encumbrances
that I will avenge
twenty-two roses
for the University of Utah football team
and the memory of Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe
Bring roses in red boxes, for mother’s arms
for the bond, for the blood of youth
red as their numbered days, for September
and December, for young brothers.
Bring roses for the jump, for the lights,
for the MUSS, for mili in the endzone -
thundering through grievous thorns,
let love bleed. Look up, and out, and roar.
Bring roses for the champions of sharp sorrow
for jubilant redress in the bright desert -
renew pride and wonder for these brothers -
hold them in favor, for home, for family.
Bring roses for hardy Utah men, brothers a
nd coaches and fathers and captains -
adorn Mesquite arbors, plant vast gardens
of grief and absence and legacy and joy.
Bring roses in procession, in tight rows
horse-drawn and regal, befitting survival -
let them celebrate with roses in their teeth -
with laurels of crimson that fade, but never die.
i picked this for you
She said picked flowers die faster
and that water isn’t enough -
that I must let them live in rough
dirt. She admonished: my aster,
once purple, would die, disaster
in my hand and my heart. I lied,
excused - she mustn’t know I cried
to grasp my gift of death displeased.
Dull words - amends - I posed, then seized -
I quit that ground, unseen, denied.
how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth
how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth
how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth
You must move to the crumbled curb
where the streetlight is brightest.
Look up at the spiraling swarm -
follow the flight of the one that falls.
vision board: home
how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth
how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth
There should always be a fireplace
that knows how I take my coffee
A chair that listens and nods along
I’ll need plenty of paper and pillows, and
if possible, a screen door that inspires
a reluctant front porch swing
A window over the kitchen sink that
tolerates awkward pauses
And a vase of pink roses that
doesn’t mind if I wander off
I’d like to have a drawer or two
that can stay quiet for a while
A closet big enough for rage
A room for music, beauty, and age
And one small shelf for regret.
it's not enough
how to move past writer's block and write the poem about the moth
it's not enough
rondeau
It’s not enough - a house with air.
Invite the dirt, and leave it there.
Emancipate the child’s excess -
all joyful splotches, every mess
in candy-coated disrepair.
Let tiny palms hold worlds, and tear
apart what they’ve assembled. Rare -
these sweetest days, without redress.
It’s not enough.
An instant twinkles past, then where
it travels next, we do not dare
conceive. Inside of our best guess
we breathe our air, we whisper yes,
for one more footprint on the stair -
It’s not enough.