In Sickness and In Health

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 coyote has long since gone but the old pit bull still barks at the edge of the chain link fence for hours without pause. I lie in...

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...

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...

I demand a day without so much fucking sky. Or, so much brown earth, flattened as though rolled and pinned by the muted white firmament. I loved it...

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...

I return to something like consciousness lying outside the gate in the driveway, partly in the county road. Our big akitas whine and leap...

“Tag, you’re it,” cancer says and you fall down the hole, you or someone you love. Your father, a friend from work, the wife of the youth...

The chest cage and diaphragm, with expansive spirit, cooperate one last time, the discomfort at the depth of the intake a reason to pause, with a sense...

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...

++++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...

The fluorescent light seems to struggle against death. Not dead yet, the fixture pulses every few or several seconds bequeathing humility to the shadows. The light is beacon-like...