Call Helen
My Mother Must Have Told the Story a Thousand Times
The Southern Review (forthcoming)
T: Nefertiti Grows Tired of Worshipping the Sun Disc
Tinderbox Poetry Journal (forthcoming)
C: The Language of Grief
Ruminate #58-“What Remains”
Sticky Monkey Flower
SWWIM Every Day (forthcoming)
Somewhere in New England
Coast Redwood
Split Rock Review, March 2021
(Read my craft essay linked to these poems here.)
California Poppy
Catamaran Literary Reader, March 2021
B: The Road Home
Poet Lore, January 2021
O: An Ode
Glare
Marigolds
december Magazine, December 2020
E: Everyday Exaltation
Literary Mama, November 2020
Picking Late Season Blueberries Near the Rifle Range
Glass: A Journal of Poetry, September 2020
Daal/In the Midst of the Pandemic,
MassPoetry, The Hard Work of Hope Series, May 2020
This is Your Hometown
Literary North, May 2020
White Tea
SWWIM Every Day, December 2019
Milkweed
Literary Mama, September 2019. Audio here.
Moving the Piano
New Ohio Review #26
Lamps
Rattle #61, Fall 2018
At the Bakery
Caves of cookies,
cenotes of cinnamon rolls
and the scene of today’s paper,
dismembered on the dark wooden tables.
There is a mother in Juarez
who has watched her sons
bleed out on the street
where they grew up, the dark juice
of their lives running in sweet rivers
around her ankles; and for a moment
my craving is for escape through the slice of pie
that – when released from its perfect whole –
oozes with the determination
of the conquered: berries in midnight-purple juice
leaking their secrets over a moon-white saucer.
It is purely instinct. At imbalance we run –
like the young men from the party, fleeing
in vain from the bullets, toward something
to love, something we remember,
what will melt on our tongues, toward the cream,
simmering crystals, the aroma reaching us
even from the blackness beyond the oven door.
Stilled, they lie inches from the soft breath
of their mama who examines
their beauty, blessing them first
with tender kisses, then bitter curses,
and if she should weep, it will be for the abruptness
of line where these two things meet.
– Anthology 2017, Celebrating the Writers of the Pioneer Valley
dreams of modern life
I
The café sits in the midst of warehouses and auto body shops. Pots of geraniums and jasmine overflow onto the concrete, stake out a place, establishing beauty. Behind the greasy garages exists a plate of delicate shortbread cookies and, next to it, the most delectable mocha cheesecake. The man on the other side of the wall, in the blue coveralls, with a socket wrench in his hand, is some days overtaken by smells of the soup du jour – tomato and roasted red pepper bisque, or gingered carrot. Some days he is overtaken by thoughts of a woman, standing, in a white apron, measuring.
II
We all walk piled with dreams. The ones you had last night and are still plagued by, even though you can’t remember the plots and only a few details, the ones calling to you trying to help, lifesaver after lifesaver hitting the water and floating away.
III
The alarm clock with its bothersome reliability, its dutiful timing, brings one into the day so unnaturally as to force a soul to pretend it is natural – to say nothing and to show up at work. To move in the world as if you belonged here, as if this were all you needed. And everyone is in on the joke, working because they need the money, doing the best they can. Outside, orange maple leaves go uncollected. It’s as if you can truly live with the knowledge that somewhere in eastern Ohio there is a playground where your childhood secrets are buried in the sand and you may never get back there before it’s too late.
IV
The little girl approaches the fountain with a penny pressed between her thumb and index finger. Qué quieres? her mother asks. What do you want? What do you wish for? Qué quieres? she fires again, without waiting for her daughter to answer. Miras, ‘yo quiero…,’ the mother models. Yo quiero… parrots the little girl, but then is silent. She stands next to her mother with the shiny penny.
Enizagam
Soul Food
A cluster of women
in traditional Korean dress
leaves the Mexican taquería
and crosses the street
in front of the Ford pickup.
From high, bowed waists
each skirt releases its own soft color:
mint, peach, custard, a velvety blue.
Their rich black hair is cut bluntly,
all just below the jaw line.
The wind billows
their exaggerated skirts,
so that they look like bells
or gumdrops
gliding along on the breeze.
I wonder where they came from
to appear here
in the downtown crosswalk,
in the bustle
of this Saturday morning.
Perhaps the wedding food
left that much to be desired,
and they headed – in full regalia –
for the safety
of a burrito and chips.
I picture those skirts bunched
into a vinyl booth while a ranchera plays
over the speakers. I imagine them
laughing together quietly,
as the Mexican hot chocolate arrives,
as they lick salsa from their fingers.
– Homestead Review