Poetry

Recent Work

Part and Parcel
(2024)

Both and neither
Too much and not enough
Two truths and a lie
Held together by a wing and prayer

The world is made of sound
Chants and rhymes, music and math
The strum of rivers, the language of trees
The wind howling in my veins

A web can be both home and trap
Find your way out      find your way back
The way is dripping in miles
lush with distraction
Far and away     as the flow cries

Constructive interference,
convenience, confusion
Wordplay, windows and illusion 
Tangled in blue, wrapped in light
Lines in a haiku that longed to be more

I don’t know what this poem’s about
Could it be everything?

Gift for a Teacher
(2024)

When you do this job for a long time, you see patterns
Waves of kids who are smart and cool,
Patches of jaded and mean. Others excited,
Cooperative or curiously
Brilliant, or bored
Benign.
But occasionally, you see that kid
This year a boy, but often a girl
And his eyes twinkle when he walks through your door
And while you’re talking, he nods his affirmation
At all those sudden thoughts
That have suddenly occurred to him
And you know that he has done the reading
With care
And he shyly offers his insights
Like flowers or an apple for your desk
Trying hard to mask his delight
But the other kids know, hate him a little,
But not enough for it to matter

Later you are sitting at your desk, bleary eyed
Pen in hand, trying to do no harm
And maybe a little good
With this pile of papers  
And you come to his essay
Which makes this hard thing easy
His writing has said something new
Something you’ve never thought of
Something true
And your happiness is deep and clear
And you know that you can’t say thank you
But you want to
And although he is much too smart, too curious
To linger long by this particular door
At this particular time 
In this particular place
You wonder if he will remember, 
Someday,
That you were his teacher
When he learned to open it.

A Book of Beautiful Sentences
(2024)

Sacred ground can feel less so 
with so many people 
milling about, taking photos
whispering and reading
their cross body bags filled with tickets 
and maps and expectations

But here I am, here
in your attic, in your story
and it does feel like a holy place
cramped and expansive
a tiny spot in the universe that was both
hidden away and 
at the exact center 
of all that terrible
warring and ignoring

Your diary of a young girl
your life raft in a sea of evil
your strong lovely script
hope and intention steeped together
like strong tea
a teenager and a heroine
wrapped up in history
sealed tight
in our collective memory
and imagination

And I knew then that I had seen
what I came to see
and felt what I came to feel
but just when I was about to go
I saw another book
one less known
a collection of sorts
but not dolls or buttons
instead, other people’s words
arranged just so
saved for the saving

A Book of Beautiful Sentences
your book of beautiful sentences
and I can’t really say
what it was about this book
that moved me so 
that made me feel just so
that made me think 
that there is no book on earth
more lovely or important
or that I’d like to hold in my hands
and read slowly
cover to cover.

Mama
(2023)

It’s been almost three years
and I see now that
the angel of you is
not a ghost
as I had hoped
But rather 
a quiet glance of light 
as I drive across 
the bridge
at dawn
a rustle in the trees
That startles me
as I run
the way strong 
coffee tastes
at that first sip
of morning
or music that lands
in my bones
a tiny bird in my path
a warm tight hug
a burst of laughter
these sudden flares of joy 
a flash, a prayer
are the sweet treasures 
of the common day
that is when I see you,
your angel heart holding
fast to mine 
and I say aloud:
Oh hi Mama
I was just thinking of you 

Pisces Season
(2023)

I dive into March like liquid silk
supple and sleek swimming in 
a deep pool of want and abundance.
My dream: to breathe underwater and
glide inside the soar and dip
of this watery sky its echo of blue
a broad and endless daylight
where all my parts become
a single murmuration

Dancing Alone
(2023)

Early today
as I wrestled with the
morning and pulled 
a favorite sweater 
over my head
I felt the unexpected comfort
of my own warm skin and
the lingering scent of
my own perfume
how to describe it?
a soft bath of lilacs or
a blanket of sweet tea
my mother’s gentle blue eyes
laughing into mine
the whisper of
a memory surfacing
from the deep 
pool of 
my solitary heart
or dancing very close 
to myself 

alone in the kitchen.

Ciudad Heroica
(2024)
I came here on a whim 
dreaming of old cobbled streets
and pink stucco
lime carts and coconut rice
a warm dream during a cold 
winter, brick on brick on brick 
cold in my heart and in my fingertips

And then, oh Cartagena!
you did not disappoint
your cumbia floating on the ocean breeze
your balconies dripping with flower
your wall, a stone skirt or maybe a crown
crafted of courage and bravado
brick on brick on brick

Walking it, considering its 
lofty promise to protect 
from pirates and vandals
traders and rogues
rough attacks from every
blue angle and slant of sun

And you were such a flirt
winking at the eventide
a wild jewel
glistening like gold or a siren song
a paradise, a passageway
they could not conquer
nor quite resist

In the end
it was quick disease 
and spreading fire
not pirates
that broke you from the inside out
and reduced your pale mango houses
to rubble and ash

And the strong solid wall
built centuries ago 
to keep intruders out
Instead worked only
to trap death in.

Long Story Short
(2024)

Kindred spirits or a passing fancy
I really can’t say
but I heard a treeful of birds
when you landed here
a murmuration on pause
all flutter and flight
an aching to fly
staying still, sitting tight

A skyful of stars
that lit me up, one flicker at a time
falling awake and on fire
drunk on moon-soaked fumes
and your favorite songs

I loved it all
and after all
what is love, if not this?
a longing or an ache
a thick in your throat
or a tiny twitch in your heart
to remind you it’s beating

I’ll take that light in me 
all lit up
that holding still when I want to fly
a date in a planner became
a meeting missed
which might have been

simply, a passing on the street
a smile from a stranger
on a trail in the woods
or the brushing of shoulders 
at a bar downtown

or maybe a dream
I can’t quite remember
a face I can’t forget
the page with a poem
I just had to write

Long Story Short
it might have been called. 

Actual and Implied Lines
(2022)

It is no small thing to write 
A good line
Of poetry, or maybe a song
That rings so true, so deep
And easy that you swear you’ve 
Known it always or
Heard it before

Just a string of simple words
Hung in the sun
In the backyard of your heart
The clothesline for a dream,
A secret or a scheme,
A blueprint for a lie
Or a simple hook 
On which to hang 
Your thoughts to dry

The story line is
Larger than life, epic
Or not, novel but short
In your long line
Of good things to read
Cross this line, hold that line
Stay inside 

The lines, I hum to myself
Knowing all the while 
That good songs and
Good stories
Unfold in the seams 
In the space that is empty
In the notes in between.

Married to New York
(2024)

Out the window by my desk
night sheds its inky skin
to announce the soft birth of a new day
its warm glow and baby blue sky
Start spreading the news
I wonder at the wonders
this day may reveal
in a city I claim, but is no more mine
than on the day I arrived
I’m leaving today
For decades now, she has seduced and
eluded me, double dog dared me
to keep her, despite my good common sense
and uncommon good will
I want to be a part of it
But she scoffs at my fidelity
winsome and grotesque
shrugs my efforts to slip a leash
around my own hapless neck
New York, New York
Although I hate to admit it
she really is all she seems:
endless possibility and never-ending filth,
glittering dead ends and incessant hope
These vagabond shoes
Her colossal heart and frigid soul,
her illicit touch, her wet kiss
splashing on my lips, onto my new dress
and into my veins
are longing to stray
I am both head over heels and
in over my head,
fearless, breathless and
helpless to leave her
right through the very heart of it
although I often want to
New York, New York

Water
(2025)
has perfect memory
I’m told, listens only to the moon
and its desire to flow
exactly to where it’s going
I am mostly water
I think
but not the still kind
the warm pool
or the tall glass
I am the splash
and the splatter
a rapid float that moves
around the hard rocks
guided only by the soft tug
of my racing heart
and the pull of the moon.