The Empty Boat
What is a wave but a giving that rehearses its taking away.
Beckon and retreat
to repeat
until we call it nature
Category: Poetry
On the need to form an alliance
Pawn to D4
we don’t have the legs to stand on
or arms to stop quarrels from reaching
our waters, we don’t own
these bodies of water or airspace
we can be toppled with one tomahawk–
My Mother Folded My Father’s Guayaberas and other Poems
The years thread
evenly, appear to look
that way, and fractures
of family life show up
in inevitable rips
I could live with.
Gyal; Re-member You
The holes in you that you can’t see
become a cliff you fall over into despair
a puddle you walk through into resentment
a fire you stumble through into rage
Meditation from My Last Night; Ballad of St. Lazzar
…the same blue we call life on these
sandcastle mansions, tops of volcanoes
long gone, silent, sealed up for the
day of the lord’s appearing,
that even now are low humming,
from the seabed, their limestone ligaments
called islands…
In the Heavy Rain; Chary; Chaperone
once upon a time i knew
only one girl with a Ventolin pump.
how many times we going bun
Riverton
scheming for contracts
to out tyre tower infernos
Shark Bait
Good mornin, how are you? In our waters, sharks speak. In this town, women learn early the delicate dance with beasts. When to move, when to freeze/when to respond without speech/with a smile fine enough to make fillet out of him.
Three poetic studies from “A Count”
the past
remained just as it had been
nailed fast
to the special moorings
of the future
…oh, and a woman long past menopause
can you imagine what longlong silence-in can do?
fury&grief locked in embrace cycloning constricted
space? i feel i know why she — he — us — thepoets,
stillstaysosilent.
Please Teacher; Third World Poem; A Gaze at Gaza
Looking again citizens see, saw the cruise ships’ sail
Where north never meets south like east meets west
On second glance down south
We sacrifice our homes for the tourists
Nesting on their dollars like sea turtles
On the edge of high tide
Antoinette; If she jumped
brokenness is what we do
because piece is all you want
never all
never whole just hole to
throw your waist into like every
other next garbage man
Reader-Woman
Black mint oil,
stout,
brown-skinned woman,
spilling into the space,
grey hair wrapped
in black
herbs sticking out
