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...
Covid’s Metamorphoses
I know—I know, sorry! Sorry. It’s this basement
desk, this heavy rain, that has me thinking of
that wet poem, book one’s great flood, the threat...
The Silver Lining of the Black Box
I teach to Black Boxes.
At the beginning of the school year teaching psychology to high school seniors on Zoom was intimidating and confusing. Black...
Aspiration
Crowned
a week before
Easter.
It is spring.
The spirit
might have whispered
in your ear,
as with Mary;
the virus
could have entered
though the eye,
through other openings.
Your uvula once pink
and light as...
Sixteen Paris Crossings or Art in the Time of Crisis
When the Museum of Fine Arts re-opened in February, I went directly to Gallery 232 in the Art of the Americas to see The...
In the Realm of Fear
I whisper, Heal us, heal us
hope my words find a prayer,
imagine it rising like mist—
how easy it used to be as a child.
The ritual...
Thinning to Fable
Inside the house no snow
No wood of footbridges dark with a staying wet
in a forest black with green
and lore with white
But burning hands under...
The School of Working Women: A Letter to My Mother
Dear Mom,
Greetings from Seattle. It’s going on ten months without seeing you, but I swear I hear and smell you in the pre-lucid hours...
The Plague Year Begins and Half Life: Two Poems
The Plague Year Begins
Outside the world blooms without us
as we picnic alone on whatever was left
when the sirens started a burning in the lungs.
How...