Cold Requiem
Tonight the harbor is the sea: waves
thunder, detonate on rocks, slosh
over the seawall. The glaring moon
has dissolved the stars.
Few others are out, it is...
To Live in Interesting Times
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...
Missing
Late spring, nights still cold, the stars clear
as spotlights, people I love keep dying.
Every week a different shocking loss:
cancer, gunshot, embolism, suicide, on and...
Ordinary Ceremonies
we don’t wait for a wedding.
on any average Tuesday, we plunge our fingers
into expensive containers & paint our faces gold.
we dress in silk &...
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...
I Develop A Crush on My Psychiatrist
And here she is: thirst.
A parable about a drowning
man. A skull found by the edge
of a river. Gully of a mouth,
bank of a woman....
Resilience I
Fire is an aria, not a red curtain.
What survived? A filing cabinet,
a pair of diamond earrings, a skillet.
Fire is a contest, not a medal.
What...
Get Off My Lawn
The yell that arose
from the shallow grave at the base of my brain
to interrupt my son as he reached
for the late lone tulip—
death-vaunting goth...
Insurrection, January 6, 2021
The god of destruction has finally chosen the time
to reveal himself in his vast formless Picassian glory.
He treads horned and naked through the elegant...
Lakefill
Summer in Chicago. Day five
with the cousins.
You are with your sister at a different lake.
When you come home we will divorce.
We have not told...
Lament in Time of COVID
This morning’s news comes as relentlessly
as it has for weeks, and today I watch
as Hasidic Jews bury their dead
by the hundreds in Brooklyn, rabbis
sitting...
Love Song
“Like a swift migrating fish, the word cellulite has suddenly crossed the Atlantic.”
—Vogue (April 15, 1968)
Come, sea ripple. Come, ocean swell
of the world that...