How These Arrangements Go
From behind my mask I probably said
to the clerk the flowers were pretty. Always
in our village on the blue counter where
you finish your business with the stamps.
Poetry
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A Roman Burial
in him those brave
translunary thingsMichael Drayton
1. Police Report
Not the hustler,
a boy you’d loved—the Roman
convicted of your murderon the beaches of Ostia.
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OF THE RING: ZAZEL
“Impresarios capitalized on women’s growing participation
in public life as a form of salable novelty.”
—DR. JANET DAVISHow you labored—Zazel, the human
projectile. Your body flung, a shot -
Appalachian Marie Kondo
for Mom
It took a global pandemic for me to organize my life –
journals, photos, ideas, mementos, clothes, closets, and junk drawers.I have five bathrooms, a basement, a third floor, and …
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TO CARLA ONE MORNING DRINKING COFFEE
This poem was translated from its original Spanish (included below) by Madeline Vardell.
Carla
this morning I’m drinking coffee alone
years ago we drank
coffee and beer in the mornings
And … -
The Oldest Story
My girl still needs to memorize the prologue
of Gilgamesh by Friday & so sticks it
above the bathroom sink & to the window
inside the old Subaru, repeating weary … -
From part 4 of Life in a Field
In this story, there is a girl and there is a donkey. What good friends they are, and they began as strangers! He has taught her everything she needs to …
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SPINOZA SAYS
He who loves God
cannot endeavor that God
loves him in return.Do you know,
I think the cool silver
of this is hard to live by.When there is anything
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In Case of Fire
It’s way past time to start heaving:
unplug the air boxes in the harmonica,
bracingly slow,
“No!” rising from your throat
like deer across a road:
there are always more … -
American Haiku: Far Away
Sunrise on the shore
Bright fire of a flaming torch
Beckons me to soar
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To Go to Belfast
Whether you’ve boarded from Liverpool or Heysham
or Stranraer, years later the journey is the same
along the Lough at evening, the chimney of the power stationin Kilroot, Carrickfergus …
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