City Birds
The turkeys are out in Cambridge. I passed one this morning on my way to church: a large male in full feather, his tail...
New England February
This is the month that tests the hidden
frameworks of things: the studs within
the walls of home and body—both of which,
you suspect, are now becoming...
Our Lies Are Our Fondest Hopes–And Science Will Destroy Them (That’s...
I never liked science. Numbers are boring. I never was this nerd guy, doing the math, imagining algorithms, checking things in a laboratory... I...
Political Machines
I recently caught up with the teaching assistant for an undergraduate humanities course I took years ago, that helped inspire my subsequent studies. I...
The Tawny-Green Steppe
April 15th, 1832
On the second day of our anchorage at the mouth of the Rio Santa Cruz, I led a party of sailors up...
The Diapers
I remember the diapers—ripping open bag after bag of used diapers. It was 2014 and a friend and I had volunteered to help with...
In Case of Moths
For days at the tail end of the Obama administration, I haunted my neighborhood thrift store, casing the free pile and the clothing racks...
Can Your House Kill You?
I squeezed past Maya and closed my office door behind her, shutting out the last rays of natural light. Under the cool fluorescents, she...
Lobo
For Paulo Paulinho Guajajara, known as “Lobo”, Guardian of the Amazon, killed by illegal loggers
I guard the forest
its canopy of reflected stars
the morpho butterflies+++...
World on Fire
Day is blood-orange red
because fire possesses everything now,
because fire says, enough.
Rain is lost over the ocean.
Jump, says dolphin,
water and rocks will catch you. Believe...
Aubade
King of neither plant nor animal
but of mornings after
rain / / ghost sprung in the gloaming
a memory of betweenness / /
arisen in the dark
and...
hottest july
on record. we’ve heard
it before, the hottest ____
on record. just fill in the
revolving blank.
hail mary, full of grace
ravenous wildfires. floods.
look! here’s video, a camper
van...