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& Bless: Poems

I’m afraid to say anything or nothing, I’m white & unalterably broken.

& Darkness Moves In

The dead cowards my parents on a tear through the goddamn fields.

& the War Was in Its Infancy Then

By the time I looked over my shoulder, the sun had already fallen.

A Blessing

We watched our father chuck her boom box out the bedroom window.

A Chain of Tiny Disasters

A widow is sort of a holy figure, while a divorcée is a tawdry one.

A Dangerous Creature

The dog glares back at Roger, his eyes on fire, but he doesn’t let her go.

A Day at the Beach for Aphrodite

I was enraged at being alone on the outside of all that love and lust.

A Distant Episode

The distant past returned—what part of it, he could not decide.

A Dream of Ease

I shoved them one by one, easy as pie yet with care, just shy of mercy.

A Father’s Story

Certainly the ushers who pass the baskets know me as a miser.

A Funky Assortment of Plates

The preacher looked me in the eye. He laid his hand on my chest.

A Life with Bears

I want to focus on bears. On knowing them, and on what they need.

A Likely Story: Anniversary

Passions played among the orchids and through cherish and reveal.

A Mirror of a Mirror

Have two children to keep around the house in case one goes missing.

A Place Like This

I can see on him how things are changing for and against us.

A Portion of Your Loveliness

My daughter’s favorite game is Holocaust. She’s quite inventive.

A Quiet Patchwork of Slats

Streetlights throw the blinds against the ceiling. It’s 7:00 p.m.

A Real Nice Baby and Other Poems

Royal baby George is tucked in the crook of his mother’s elbow.

A Real Writer

Advance planning was never Hank’s strong suit, he had to leave her.

A Redeeming Sacrifice

Paul King was shiftless and drunken; ugly tales were told of him.

A River of Stars

For all the stories they’d concocted, the real one electrified them.

A Sailor

She did not leave him for the sailor. So why should he be angry?

A Saint from Texas

So that’s what I’d look like if every beauty parlor in the world shut down.

A Serious Desert

All over the planet people try to end pain: striptease, bee stings.

A Small Blip on an Eternal Timeline

I grabbed him by the face and told him life only comes to a person once.

A Small Hotel

The allure of Mardi Gras is to feel this way: unseen and unseeable.

A Small Motor

A boy watching another boy lucky gets an ache. That is a small motor.

A Soldier’s Lover

We never really had what might be considered a normal conversation.

A Soliloquy Would Imply That the Stage Is Empty

A father peeled the night / from another midnight & begged / me to lie

A Son of Baghdad

For me, Selweh was the real magic. She was nothing like my mother.