To say blue would be too simple (excerpt)

To select a favorite stone to set in silver is to know your knuckles

and the years of cobalt and opal you have held your hands

under cool water, inside this wintery place. The songs you know
by heart, melodies of movie musicals in which the angel father

brings a star of cyan from blue heaven for his daughter
The full, blue moon, your head bobbing to jazz drum shuffle

All this aquamarine and fall blue, late snow that lands
on the azure underside of desert earth where aspens molt

and the evergreen trees are nearly navy when squinting to see
driving in again for home, from far. Tired and blue

Blue where rickety houses hang on to the edge of the earth
Secure now as seen from a deep denim galaxy, you, working blue,

Mother, and I had to leave you to return to your enchanted place
To your worn, cool hands jeweled with blue. To dry waves of juniper,

jays, and the hues of landscape as runoff spills over, blue bottles...

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Vessel

Inside I imagine puckered cups of butter cookies nested in paper that releases a sigh But instead there may be fiction within wishes never reciprocated Playbill of redundant arguments One black glove found fraying This vessel on an emptied table solo temptation is labeled with another’s name Guarded initials as if carved in melting snow A tool unsuited to the task of prying open Not yet valentine

Shameless Early Promotion

My poetry book, The Fiction of Stillness, is available for pre-order now on Barnes and Noble. Official release date August 1st, 2024. Here's a taste: ... The table is smooth and round symmetric The chairs are haphazardly placed at the end of this day I have breast cancer I say into the receiver [communities must] pool resources How to produce the sounds of the imaging report into sentences that resonate with months of postponement weighty contrast on my right side computing and comparing IM ratios for greater insight not sufficient to prove the efficacy of screening ...

A Matter of Travel

Solstice, 2019, for Tracy 1. And cross borders we do often without leaving our houses. Our bodies dream of gardens. Our hands flutter as feeling exits as we press hard against the solid entry door. I type the names of cities. My search reveals rivers, airfares, temperatures in July. 2. Seeking sleep, I am transported through music piped into tiny earbuds. While on an island my father has two seizures in the night. His ten children fly to one another with cautionary fright, typing. Time zones vary from each cell phone exclamation. Two sisters, you and I, raise questions that barely touch down for others but I witness you. 3. By morning we’re assured was merely fainting, and I reconsider change of plans. No emergency to rush to his quiet side. I walk no farther instead to this table for eggs, an English muffin. Arrive inside my individual conclusions. Concern that happin...

As Mourning Doves Persist

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