Category: poems

In my sleep sometimes I catch myself circling the iron rail Guarding an opening in the second floor of an empty café. I close my eyes tightly until the colors come back, Until I can hear glasses clinking at the bar below, Until I can see chickens and small birds return To their ornate paintings, […]

In Simon’s the walls are narrow like an airplane corridor And the music plays too loudly on the speaker in the back corner By the bathroom and this is where we sit. The only seats amidst The camped computers and cold coffee, turned bitter by the hours Of the day. The baristas have their names […]

In the summer there are peaches and the nights are not short. My head, an apple in a bonsai tree, topples over to sleep. I roll through the halls where the living honor the dead Only on the anniversaries of their coming and going. Chickadee footfalls foretell winter, the light changes, You can be wrong […]

Dear Emily, I saw a wind-ruffled bird Where two bricks met to hold the morning’s rain. I felt the smallness of my body and it thrilled me. I am sorry for tearing the silk of your dress. Would you please seal this before I send it? Dear Emily, when I am leading the dance, Shall […]

I can’t wait for the stutter of consciousness each morningAnd the thousand-colored blush of 34th Street to disappear behind me. I can’t wait for the pause in all this manic choreography and the rubywork of these scraped knees to return from kneeling on concrete as children do. I can’t wait for each small desire to […]

Should I wait for my hair to grow? Should I wait for the great gown of Living to run down my back, for Time to be more than a habit? Should I wait to feel it like The brush of unfamiliar fingers, To be yanked by the wind, to Be heavier than the rain? Should […]