Poetry

Known
And Adam knew his wife, who through the knowingbore Cain. You are handsy in the Uber,having known me all afternoon thoughwhat I will bear as

Inheritance (Metaphysicals XVI)
From my mother blue eyeswatching from the fringeslike a rabbit in long grass From my father thin browsraised & veering with dreams& schemes From my

Vespers: After Louise Glück
Once I believed in You,still do,though belief is often evasive, often abstract,like air, which itself defies graspyet needy lungs clutch at it with the certaintythat

Parable of the Lost
quick breath, heart beat, clock strike: each metronometick-tocks past paths that arch like R’s bowl, backby another route, by the crook’s call home:a lost and

A Recovered Alcoholic-Addict Talks of Grace
The cancer shot through Earl like a rainbowand left a crook in his arm, just right to lift upthe grandchild he’d never held before. With

How to Reconcile with a Brother
—after Ellen Bass I could build him a barn, a big one,as wide as the sky, red, to show my loveand to confess I share

Release (Metaphysicals XV)
If when the end has ended & allthat’s been running down begins to rewinduntil each beginning has once more begunimaginethe mountains grown taller more jaggedthe

Be Killing Sin
I was 7 and riding the school bus hometo the trailer we lived in back then.My chubby, right cheek was pressed against the cool glass window when a

A Shout
From the falling formof an intricate vase,water was freed,each flowing cluster and dropa complexity of light,color and motionspilling excitedly through the airamidst one vivid yellow

I Don’t Know the Biochemistry of a Hummingbird
I can only wonderat this blurredwhir of evidence, cloudedin the blue fanof a thousandwings. I wantto feeltheir million beatsper second on my beardand lashes,reelfrom each

Above the Tree Line
When God wanted to speak,God’s mountain goat jawbone locked shut,so God leapt silentlyrock to rock, appearing at timesto sidle up a sheer vertical cliff. A

Love Like An Ocean (Metaphysicals XIV)
Batter my boat Wide-spread Watermake your breakers shake my hull& threaten to capsize me Pushmy bow & blow me back attack me broadside with yourwhipping