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Notes Toward An Elegy
[She calls her second husband Unfortunate Mistake and the third Bigger Mistake] Once I resided, a curl the size of a pig’s knuckle below her pelvic bone. They sliced her down the middle to lift me...
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Two Poems
OSSA LEONIS The tomb of Juan Ponce de León is in the basílica de San Juan Bautista. It is made of white marble. On it are carved the words “Mole sub hac fortis requiescunt ossa leonis qui vicit factis...
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The Reformation
(being a continuation of “The Hell Poem,” which nonetheless ends, not to be continued, before this poem begins) 1. In the morning what I took To be the morning light Burned through the ceiling sun-...
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The Union Forever
The field lay all before us. That firstevening we could almost see the South’s skirmish lines furling outlike a ribbon. Pickett whirling on his stallion. On Cemetery RidgeUnion monuments threw their...
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Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: Notes on Pattern and Variation
1. In a crowded New York City tenement building, late in the 19th century, an old lady lives under the apartment of an old man, his bedroom directly over hers. Every day after work, without fail, the...
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My Boyfriend, John Keats
We walk hand in hand through the museum We are at the Met in September So you’re emotional, we stroll Carelessly through the hall of antiquities You whisper to the statuettes “Fill all fruit to...
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Two Poems
THE JUMBLIES an elegy 1. Back Room at Monster Pets. My Mother is Dying. A snake’s complete nutritional package is mouse but my girl’s was weaned on earthworm by the Hurricane, Utah, breeder who...
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Cicada Meditation
If scatter was a pattern, that’s the one they made—no swarm, no lines from hill or hive to sky. They may have, must have come from the clusters of thunderclouds when they lay cocooned underground, or...
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Three Dramatic Monologues
Ankou Though nothing more than rumours now have touched The little towns beyond the city walls, And salted meats and vegetables yet hang For sale in booths along the market street, And outside every...
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The Cats of Old San Juan
The cats of Old San Juan are not native though they were born here. They are not native though being native is not a measure of belonging. The cats are here because of the rats. The rats are here...
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