Poetry

The White Hospital

They took two buses to get there. / Rosalia wouldn’t speak, just cradled the little suit / until Ruben gently took it away from her.

The Mountain and the Teaspoon

She wondered what would happen / to her actual face. Would it fade away? Or would it / stay put, like a person you can never get rid of

My Mother is a Fish

My mother’s old kimono cradles me / so that I can become a fish, wet with / water I can drape about my shoulders.

Hold for the Smallest Moment

Make for the moment / the moon in its place / And lie quickly beneath to remember.

The Thundering

Beside the door, / a pair of shoes, an umbrella, your black coat, things in minutes / you will no longer need

A History of Melasma

All that ink on your skin! / bartenders would marvel. / Cosmos at my elbow…

Day 1,301

There will be a worse day. He will live / long enough to not recognize me at all, / and I sense it drawing nearer…

Dementia Unit for John Glenn

You toss a pale bagel onto his plate, / do some hand-waving around / the problem of gravity.

Autumn Dawn, After Fog

the fields to silver, mown paths / like rivers of first-ice—every / blade of grass scattering light