Breath
I sanitized, gowned, tied the billowing fabric around my waist and neck. Then: blue gloves over cuffs, face shield over N95, breath cocooned in...
Once, More Than Once and Slurring
ONCE, MORE THAN ONCE
Huffing and puffing, Dr. Frye arrived
late in the evening to visit Northridge Hospital.
Frey would worry about my tragedy, already learning
my brain...
God Don’t Make Junk
That day, I was Windexing my mother’s coffee table. It was probably a Saturday. My mother sat on one end of her hunter-green couch...
Pulling Out Hair in the Time of COVID
A vessel displayed in the Vatican’s Etruscan Museum depicts a Greek goddess, Eos, mourning her son. Memnon was a celebrated leader of the Trojan...
valentines day
++++this day
I wasn’t in my body anymore.
spineless in the reflection
of widespread windows
barriers of glass doors
closing, needles and
beeping and jumpsuits
eyes and warm sheets.
I met many...
Leave Me Alone
I return to something like consciousness lying outside the gate in the driveway, partly in the county road. Our big akitas whine and leap...
A Murmuration of Stones
A plot. A boneyard. A potter’s field. A necropolis. A golgatha.
I stumbled upon it one steamy day in the first summer of COVID, while...
The Red
The red of the port
scar near her heart
of the Citgo sign’s glow
when I turn to the window
of my eyes from watching her
in the infusion...
The Fig Tree
Because of the virus, we moved to Sonoma, into a little house we have on the top of a mountain, with its gnarly garden...
Diagnosis
In the beginning there was no name for the soft slippery thing
inside me — but it demanded to be held. Like a child
that could...
with what letters remain
“...because even the soul is a creature...”
- Meister Eckhart
you’re here,
telling me how
a disease survives
in saliva & blood & water
& it’s swift mutation
to rancid wine...
The New York Times Publishes 1,000 Names
I don't know about you, but I'm ready for something to be
different. This staying at home, not knowing what's going to
happen next, worrying, not...