Poetry

Ambiguous Loss

It feels like holding a bird in one hand / and a bowling ball in the other.

The Rice-Eating Ceremony

Nine months into my life, I am asked to eat on command / These tiny bursts of cylindrical snow that will reappear / Again and again

On January 24th*

It’s been proven, they say— / the bills like a line of ants, / the glamour of the new year / grown dull like a tin ring

My Friend in Flapping Stages Tries to Take Flight

April is my favorite month. / Its stormy flowers / and puddled rainbows are captivating / as is the lightning / that breaks cool spring nights / like a child’s scribble.

Phosphorescence

Passing by the burial ground, / I see some flickers of light. / A friend tells me / it’s the bones that flash.

Out Back, Behind the Hospital

We shared cigarettes and jokes / talked about anything except / what we’d seen, the baby we’d X-rayed, / his bruises…

Migrations

San Nicolas fluctuated between mentor, master. / The more I travelled the stairs, he levitated. The more / I slid my finger along his goldstone frame, he’d say, /‘Ciónnn.

Six Weeks into Chemotherapy

To be unseen, unprayed for, to be unhugged / in the grocery store and left alone // to select a melon.

Monitor

Now it’s loose in the house, and out back. / lop away its extremities, they swell back fat.