First Mercy I am holding in my hand an invisible poem. I can’t read it. I don’t know what it says. I want to make it visible. Want to see my wife in it. Want to see her at 22 before our daughter was born, before I developed the imagination to hurt another human […]
for Philip Levine When the CIA said, An extraordinary renditionhas been performed, I knew Lester Youngblowing his saxophone in that way he didwhen Billie Holiday was a few feet awaysmoking, singing “I Can’t Get Started,”was not what they had in mind. No, the agentat the podium talking to reporterswho spends most of his days staringat computer screens […]
All Summer after“What’s LoveGottoDo?” by Richard Blanco All summer I wander between houses, couches, in and out of Dil and Lil’s secondhand Murano, air conditionless, legs suctioned to the seats / Radio set to whatever isn’t static, most days Spanish, Mexican horns blaring, pushing down three-lane highways and rural dirt roads / All summer I […]
A special edition for Motif’s Fiction and Poetry issue Running along the boardwalk on the way to the shore, In two’s and in three’s, racing on their way, Crematogaster sisters, acrobats with heart. The farmers brought us out to see the mystery, a crop had been targeted, thirsty broccoli, the youngest sprouts, Tetramorium encircled. Clinging […]
I run early, up hills like San Francisco’s cousin—or stepsister. Not blood-related, but the grime clings the same. Shopping carts gather behind the house, where the snowdrops just emerged, buttercups not far behind. And I run past a coffee shop just opened, selling Jerusalem bagels, and the stones that lead from the playground into the […]
Recurring Dream i dream of being [cold] without cover spilling from my mouth pearl strands of quilted grieving i spit into the Atlantic i spit toward the Moon in the morning crystal-bright at night i swallow my teeth & dream unraveling sunset into bowls of emeralds buckets of beloved hand-food & docks salted in mourning […]
Elected – Withdrawn Inexplicable desire to tidy the kitchen sweep the floor move geraniums into southern sun slant of light on the new mousepad— Positano seascape, or somewhere in Liguria each evocative locale charged & relieved you were mostly unconscious when they stormed the rotunda; dead almost at sunrise on the morning of the inauguration […]
l. i was a wife to interminable hospitality. i ripped open the couch and ate the cushions until i was comfortable. am i obsessing on a singular idea of the home? i want so endlessly; i drip tomato sauce on a white blouse and remove it to rinse it off in the sink. the sensuality […]
Slipping two five-dollar bills inside her casket. After, sitting in your car watching everyone filter out. Neither of us crying, not even when the radio cut and the sun peeked through the fog like an outstretched palm. Like the mole my father and I shared, growing back after he left — never bringing myself to […]
As I strolled down a thriving and sundrenched Wickenden Street this past weekend and made my way toward Coffee Exchange to meet Vladimir Jean, the curator of PVD’s Afroverse and a nominee for the 2025 RI Spoken Awards, I stumbled upon our subject standing outside the coffee shop snapping impromptu photos of the blissful spring […]