
Poems
Stunned Awake
from Here in My Body it Feels Crowded
Not having the book not remembering what it said
stunned awake into sheets like tissue wrapping of the old dress
dank from years’ saving
dusty gritty cement floor little windowless room who knew
what children could get up to
The Body the Distance Traveled
from Here in My Body it Feels Crowded
Morning spills from the bulk of a small house its quiet hour
unyoked to must
the shaggy elms raining green benediction
the arbutus with its red fruit a baretrunked palm’s spreading crest
dear to the mother of the gods
What Had Once Been My City
from Quivira
A funerary tower halfway climbed
the Bedouin on a little motorbike always ahead at the next site
necklaces looped on his arm swinging
the teenaged executioners parading in front of bound prisoners
5 or 6 Miles Distant Rises a Gigantic Land Mass
from Quivira
The daytime moon brighter than smooth horses
in the field on Kit Carson
a mudbricked house bracketed by thin limbs
of almost bare aspens one called weeping
A Compelling Velvety Voice
from Quivira
Dust fine as talc unfragranced and pale, a road
eerily untrafficked though now and then
disordered by cars, overhead the cold pearl of the moon
and thudding film memory
Her Nonchalant Way of Holding the Glass
from Quivira
Pressed against a porch wall to keep out of busy gray rain
although bare armed and bare legged not shy of it
prismatically shifting tissue thin wet hydrangeas
clumped compactly as brains
oh beautiful ditherer drenched and feeling changed
from 21 Days
from Quivira
The overland trail lined with graves
a dying daughter begging the men to dig
down 6 feet so the wolves
would not find her
the tired men
reaching 4 feet that’s enough
Willow and Pecan, Hackberry and Huisache
from Lizard Dream
Not a language of grief
the well rehearsed green chorus
bends to one side. A sleek blackbird erupts,
somewhere
a chainsaw. Somewhere
I Was Not Listening
from Lizard Dream
I was not listening I was remembering small lights strung in the dark
by a narrow river
reflections like fireflies ricocheting off smooth water that was both
brown and green
like a mirror in a dark room that headlights of turning cars
ply with light
After a Few Pages I Understood No More Than When I Began Reading
from Lizard Dream
He was watching The Battle of Algiers, which he said
was just like today. An Algerian angry with the French joined a group,
then the French burned down a building, many dying.
The end showing a general like Rumsfield saying
it was finished now and
someone else saying no it wasn’t.
She told him how she felt, which wasn’t purposeful
Put Down That Heavy Kettle
from Lizard Dream
Put down the heavy kettle I was not
a good mother I was a
good mother a little bit
pequeño pequeñito
Tiny Yellow Mums
from White Stucco Black Wing
Tiny yellow mums in the green plastic
hardware store pot bunch dryly.
higher than the sex toy trees
a lone bird drifts. Wish again
for a city’s fire escape where
What Kind of Life
from White Stucco Black Wing
What kind of life is this
this ripe this
smooth this unhurrying
ascent and descent
Once I was in Wyoming
from White Stucco Black Wing
Once I was in Wyoming
Wind at night
Tiny toenails of mice in the walls
Liquid graffiti
Tinged with Red Neon Clouds Drift in from the Coast
from White Stucco Black Wing
Here is a story: A teacher invites students to his house where his wife lies in bed in the front room, paralyzed, He never mentions her, and neither do the students as they step quietly near the body. Following a dusty yellow path
downhill past a water tank and its obsidian surface, a rat-rattling barn, and all the high pale gras with its dry rasp that may be lizard or wind yet all walk faster