Widow
God,
You carry this device in my chest called love
& I - a child of infertility - choose you to sterilize
the left testicle of ...
Up Close
A dandelion’s fruiting head
a jeweled amphora.
Spinach tissue’s blue
mosaic, too beautiful to eat.
Stomata dot the skin of trillium
like points on a map, what’s laid bare
by...
Ghazal in the Year of Corona
What can I do to stay clear of Corona?
How can I not draw too near to Corona?
Praying that someday we’ll all meet again
And not...
I’m Trying to be a Person
I’m Trying to be a Person
on whom nothing is lost. I have ruined several custards with scalding impatience.
Not...
My Name Was Jason
On the south shore, an overdose claims a life every eight days
- Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 2014
My palms so pale, palm to palm
to...
Eastern Screech Owl and Northern Goshawk: Two Poems
Eastern Screech Owl
Outside my daughter’s window—
she’s eight—a screech owl
in a pilfered nest in the hollow
of a horse chestnut tree.
The squirrel squawks, glaring
first at me,...
Crime Shows
I watch crime shows from Norway and Sweden.
Wallander and Salamander and others with names I can’t pronounce.
I watch crime shows from England with American actors.
There are guys who hang out in dark corners and women police detectives
who talk about one night stands
and hang out in closets.
Poem Beginning in the Body and Ending in a Landscape
Partly wreckage
See
Left leg
Not going as the leg once went
Not light
The way the light once went
Before the light went dim
And a field grew out of...
Agnes Varda, Bill Viola: Two Poems
Agnes Varda: The Ardent Background
Always in the background of her films, landscape
as seeing
at times through a window.
framed by a curtain
held back by a hand....
Allegheny Cemetery Day in Winter
The world of "Allegheny Cemetery Day in Winter" is compelling and haunting. A poem by David Blair.
Johnnie Redding
News said he died of a cocaine overdose
in the elevator shaft of an old warehouse.
He languished there for months, they said,
under a layer of...
Intensive Care
No figures here but pulse, breath and pressure;
no metonymy of fate but a real hand
cold upon a real sheet.
What could any actor speak more...