I sat at the kitchen counter, aware of a heaviness, a numbness, in my flesh, my bones, my mind. My dancer's body -- short, trim and 108 pounds -- felt as huge and unmoving as the…

out here the land/speaks in Quaker silence

Our Lord Savior Google/ answers prayers without prejudice/ and leaves the self-hatred up to you

I had no portent this would occur, / Ne'er did I see this happening, / Not days before, nor those coming;

Her boyfriend is into U.S. presidents and professional wrestling. He is reading biographies of both occupations and says this helps him to appreciate gray area, decisive action. Lives of great men, he explains.

Occasionally I will pick up a quarterly— As a budding poet, to do what I oughterly, And peruse the pages for helpful examples That I can crib or use as samples.

Where scenery is property and time is a straight edge; where the clouds are billowed and still; where one sees a tinfoil ocean and perspective to the east; where the static waves begin to move; where an immobile sky rustles and kneels. Our eyes looking still are the…

Another Saturday in April. Another set of scars.

At any moment, she'll come outside to pick up the day’s newspaper. He can see it resting beneath the blooming crape myrtle, its plastic wrapper glistening with dew.

We have become// the sum of our appetites,/ the growth curve of our dominion.

Now it was black line, wall, turn, and black line.

I had ink for blood then and “the news” was my oxygen.

The bartender keeps asking what you smell and you say: lemons, oak, and pear. I smell lust. We move to the reds. Pinot Noir. Cabernet Sauvignon. Port.

Beneath the crosshatch gazes of the satellites and above the maze of sound, seahorse clouds exhale a glaucoma haze before they are absorbed into surveillance footage

On the phone I asked my mother how she was doing. “I’m getting old,” she said. “Going slow. But getting there. I’m ninety-four!” My mother was always 94, when she was really 93. I remember she was 93 right after she turned 92. And 92