Eleven years in the making, his mistress
grabs the night. Eyes down, she holds out
a piece of meat cooked; he eats
from her fingers. Ceramic plates, fractured
in the trash bin, breakfast eaten in a hall closet.
She pushes his voice under water, listening
with an unforgiving shrug, blinks her way
through dinner parties. Each night she falls asleep
to the music [...]
Tanka #1
the dark sky dropped
poured itself into footsteps
a rose, quieted
she pinches eggs from next door
and sells them for ice cream
Based on the poem “A Rose Quieted” from the chapbook Brushing Back History.
Tanka #2
metal biting thing
exposes pulp pink flesh
water marries beads
of blood that took seventeen
stitches to thread together
Based on the poem “Seventeen Stitches” from the [...]
later two uniforms step up mother
shakes me awake her stuttering hands
nervous butterflies my shoulders escorted to parked
cruiser in navy blue silence handcuffs
After the rain, the wind died in front of him. It
flowed down
the river, upright. The turbulence showed the
grass its seat,
and even the book seemed greener
than the shoes on his feet.
He grabbed the sun on either side,
directed the clouds to turn left,
but the clouds landed, grey and deflated,
in a yellow plastic pail. He clenched
his teeth, looked [...]
The landscape of your sorrow: a house
fallen, in the dark. You follow him
A silver pendant drawn against my neck;
its metal mouth open. Rain pellets tap
the window, like impatient fingertips.
She drops to her knees, carrots and beets pulled from the garden moments earlier spill from her arms, cheek against soil, next to the memory of home.
O love, you were born before
midnight moments before the next day
the breaking of the skin, the breaking
of the sun, movement and flutter of air
midnight moments before the next day
at the exact moment you entered this world
of the sun, movement and flutter of air
beginning, the only ceremony
at the exact moment you entered this world
small prayers [...]
Male butterflies visit their favourite watering hole
where they collect sale to give as a gift in mating
the crow that flew into the greenhouse to greet
my father; it was time to go
Born of hammers and chisels
quarry men spend darkened days
She looked to Hera for answers
but the goddess was busy tending
to the marital bliss of others.
You climbed through a hole in the Earth’s
surface, through height, cold, beauty,
through depth, heat, emptiness. I climbed
to greet the sister who fell from the sky,
just as a son rose to meet me.
Gods gave us the power of dreams.
In fabricated photographs, we press our selves
into ceremony as crown dancers bless the way
before us. We watch tobacco [...]
Nanabijou
in his eternal sleep
lies beneath the rocky sky
betrayed by an impostor, double-crossed
you stand on the November shore
wearing earrings made of fisheyes
staring at the Spirit of the Deep Sea Water
your feet press scrub flat
the wind wraps
your shoulders in a shawl
you crush his ring in your fist
its stone bleeds
you think of treachery, lift your hands
in offering
ashes tumble [...]
Rocks collide inside her skull
souvenirs of Lac des Mille Lacs
music pushes through tweeters and woofers
as blunt and metallic as her lover’s passion
a careless hatchback
answers her throaty call of desire
tosses a handful of stones
at the thrum of his anger
coupled in a slow dance with hillside scrub
uproots thistle, ragweed
mounts a boulder
furrows deeper
shattered bits of windshield bleed
her third [...]
Braided hands study
pock-marked skin rub it silent
my tongue, muddy and swollen
fingers
unthread her daughter’s eyes
measure
the curve of each spine
our
conversation cobbled between bowls
of porridge, loads of laundry
upturned shells
lay rind to flesh hollowed
of life
close-fisted shadows
slide across
linoleum
I turn in the opposite
direction escape the shifting
light she gathers
Roman numerals stows them
like stones in her apron pocket
their weight
like rationed oranges
or coal for [...]
On 32nd Street, in Korea Town, alone
on the fifth floor, thinking of you
on a bed, unmade. Delivery
trucks below inventing idle love
call to men standing
in doorways smoking cigarettes. I call back.
A musician plays his saxophone beneath
a bridge made of stone. Slow notes tumbling
down my back as I walk
a path tucked neatly into a ridge.
A lover’s hand [...]
It is likely that she kisses
the papery skin of her child’s fontanelle,
stretches her fingertips above
his belly, begs his ribcage
and thin arms, where inky flesh greys.
There is a slow tearing, an acceptance
of parting. An unbearable surrender
she does not resist.
She may ask her child’s forgiveness;
she understands the burden
of motherhood.
This is the curve of her story.
There is a [...]
Born of the soil
bred to work from daylight to dark
and to never expect
anything more
Loaded into boxcars heading east
to improve their lot, packed with livestock
they travelled on dirty floors of hay covered
where animals slept, ate and shat
farmers of heavy stock, invited
to liberty
their stupid courage stepped off
railway cars filled with promise
to sidewalks steeped
in the memory of Stalin’s [...]
I have a black and white photograph
of my great-grandparents.
Their daughter gave it to me.
“He looks normal.” I say. He smiled
for the picture. “She looks
tired,” the daughter responds, knowing
the reasons.
The woman in a petite, patterned dress sewn
by hands too old for his eyes; remnants
of vows tying hands to secrets. An English
garden, the heart of her homeland.
Rose [...]