Silence roused us from our sleep, Once the blackout killed the clock And hushed the strangely soothing hum Of everyday appliances. We got...

Guilty I look like an unloved wife – brilliant diamonds circle my finger promise vows my heart is still trying to keep. In hotel bars men...

When Pat Boone bought in a fit of urgent love between an old man and old machine a Fairlane sedan still wore original mint green with...

Painting Flowers “Pinto flores para que así no mueren.” “I paint flowers so they don’t die.” -Frida Kahlo When I paint flowers they...

SEA FARER-1952 I once sailed paper boats in the flooded gutters of the boulevards of New Orleans Where the paved streets and shaded side...

Endangered Species After we watch a right whale— perhaps for the last time— flip and roll far beyond Sandy Neck Beach, we meet old...

The Blade he shaped knives with ash handles like the one that bends to the shape of her leg inside scarred boots gone on forty years now...

A yellow swallowtail flew directly into the spray this morning, as I watered my garden. It landed upside down in the mulch, pale side to...

Duckweed The smallest flowering plant. Last night, A full moon In the bedroom Window. This morning, Winter sunlight Bathes the southern...

A kitten sits outside on my neighbor’s patio ledge, and, being a kitten, boxes butterflies and weeds. Tawny and feral, hungry . . . but...

Institute of Eyes I’m waiting among those who are already waiting, hoping to see something of comfort that they’ve seen before, or...

Poem for a Mother Taken for Riccy Enriquez Perdomo When I use the word taken She was taken from her promise She was taken from her...

It wasn’t difficult for him to separate exotic specimens of roses from caladiums, so common they’ll grow thrown to the ground. He went...

Navigating a Housing Bubble She calls with weather reports and says, “We split a potato for dinner.” He might send a picture of a bird on...

BARELY BREATHING Even my bones are asleep and only the sky is alive. I think I feel your fingertip circling the birthmark on my...

MAJOR MUSIC STUDIOS The glitter of a drum set caught my eye but I told Mom as we passed by the gold trombones in the shop window that...

LIFE, TIME, & FORTUNE I have looked out to the ocean and wondered why we ever crawled out, why, some sunny day, we followed the...

Sign of the Good Eye Took a while, but I finally found someone who would do it, who would make a homemade sign for outside my door that...

Though it gets dark earlier and earlier you were already weakened at birth –without a shrug let go things the way each grave is graced...

Doppelgängers When I was younger, women often took me aside to say how much I looked like someone else: a dead lover, a son, a brother....