Poetry

Hinges

You opened this door. Forced it back/ 
on its hinges, drove in the thin wedge, saying/
“I may need to enter at a moment’s notice.”

My Friend Paul Says

if I slurred my speech, if I stuttered,/
if I could not swallow, which variable/
would make me less worthy of living?

Telephone

These days I think of you/
on the yellow chaise/
with your Parkinson’s/ 
and hatred of telephones, 

Off The Page: Luggage

Jason Schneiderman reads “Luggage,” a poem by Ted Kooser

Escape

Everything she did that day/
was the hardest thing/
she’d done, but it felt easy.

A SESTINA OF BAD NEWS

“There are more important things I should be doing at the age of forty-two”/
you say, showing me photos of your daughter in a pink, fluffy tutu and I

Ordinary Psalm with Near Blindness

The world mostly gone, I make it what I want: / from the balcony, the morning is a silver robe of mist / I make a reckless blessing of it

“Silence = Death”  

His worn-out T-shirt, black as mourning, black / as countless deaths, surprises me

Dusk in Dupont Circle

A wingspan so wide it soared beyond the sidewalk / like a small plane. I turned, I had to turn, find where it landed