Poetry

Grant had a lot of buttons on that coat—when he wore it.

My daughter is learning how much guessing is in motherhood.

In all the faded retellings of that night, there’s a lot he left out.

Then came “the sea of trouble” as he crumpled his bank statement.

I take the box against my chest like a portal to my father’s heart

They’re still there since they never grew old. The story is never finished.

There are parts of a man that are born again with each of his daughters.

I keep dripping milk until I’m sitting in a pool of it, sticky, white. I can’t move.

She was so happy they were going to save her from the city of Dallas.

Even Medusa was beautiful once, before the sea, snakes, stone. Any chimera is regal if you turn a certain way. Even Medusa was beautiful.

My shadow is cast by the paleness of a certain star.

It ends with a flourish like smashing a glass in the fireplace.

I walk across the fields with only a few young cows for company.

My hands only knew. The painkillers in our mothers’ cabinets.

I want something warm that won’t feel shame lying over me.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the pain dissolves like a Eucharist wafer.

It’s been a rainy, relatively windless fall, the aspen leaves clinging.

Let me tell you stories about lands far from here where you are absent.

In my sister’s memory, an old woman chased after the oranges.

I make peas and argue with a wall. Something gets stuck like that.

Toe over toe we went, arms held out like tightrope walkers.

As you watch the picture and begin to notice more, the nothing grows less.

The baby won’t sleep until 2 a.m., not until he poops and throws up.

Today brings a blue hour, but the jasmine has been dead for weeks.

The notes must be crying inside me falling from their proper octaves.

A grin of bitterness swept thereby like an ominous bird a-wing.

I am desperate to love myself, to tolerate myself, vanity is fine.

Some days are stretched so taut it feels like changing might break us. We feed the baby bitter melon, flower pepper, bloodroot beet. The first snow comes in January, fresh gauze over an old wound.

The grass is defiant, wild, and reluctant to take any shape.