Psych(e) Study A group of 70-year-old men, asked to pretendthey were forty years younger,found their shoulders to be wider,their hearing and vision improved,their gnarled fingers smoothedlong and agile – their bodiesremembering youth so preciselythat time halted, their ages froze,and their minds smiled into the 1950’s,re-becoming the young menwatching black and white television,marveling at the first […]
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To My Parents My hands look like yours as they age.The knobs of knuckles and wrists,the veins threading into themselves,the familiar landscapes of skin.A childhood spent reaching for them,finding comfort in their long fingersthat cradled me the way trees did. My mind and legs are also yours,as is their dialogue –the neurotic generator behind our […]
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Some Kind of “Why I Write” Poem Yes, I guessI have a lot of feelingsmy friends greet mewith boxes of tissuesin hand – I writemonuments to momentsthat froze me insidethink of my eyesas thawing if it helps– it helps. I guess I thinkof childhood as akind of hibernationthe instinct of burrowingthat lingers beyond womba silence […]
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How to Love Your Art Clear out a room in your house.Wipe the windows (there must beseveral), paint the wallsa color with a poetic name,chartreuse or amaranth,something alive.Take your art into it, say,“here you are.I made this for you.” It may take some time,but watch how it transformsthe space, what strange plantsbegin to grow from […]
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Little frightened bodhisattva quaking on its fragile threads of “poor me, poor, poor me”, tucking its chin against the wind – . small sunburst – darling magic gumdrop – you are many more colors than this. Un-bow your head. Spin stronger stuff, a way out without one back.
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So for once in my life, let me get what I want – Lord knows, it would be the first time. . Dear Morrissey, . Sometimes there is a thunderstorm in my head and I am buffeted by descending clusters of fuck-you rain and my body twists tragically . into a tangle of helpless and […]
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I am naming the neighborhood cats after my demons. Compulsive Guilt tracks my path with light green gaze, refusing to leave its patio post, a steady sentinel. Don’t Leave Me has a crooked knob of a tail and a strangled greeting when I stop to scratch behind its silver ears. I once sat in the […]
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There is a strange synchronicity in the wounds from breakups. In grieving the absence of your shoulders, I miss his flannel. I write a song and don’t know who it’s about, only that it is true. The emptiness in my belly whispers secrets to the knot in my throat, its best friend. Each tiny sadness […]
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To the Father Who Told Us No, His Daughter Is “A Healthy Kid” . I don’t blame you for being scared of us. I am sorry that Cancer is written on our clothes, our big purple cart, our ukuleles. As you speak, I imagine you walking these halls with your gaze magneted to the carpet, […]
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You are not what they told me you’d be. The name they gave you fits like a funeral around a sunshower, a feeble attempt at containment. Widow is a word with stooped shoulders, a conch shell spine, a grey husk of waiting. . You are a million moments of sunlit water reborn as comets. Your […]