Category: articles
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Dust Pneumonia, 1937
When my brother died, I stuffed his shoes with newspaper to make them fit I think of him when I wear them His lungs, always weak on the baseball field Couldn’t take it. They filled up like flour sacks OklahomaTexasKansasColorado Topsoil turned turgid all over the plains Invading him We played soldiers…
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SIDE VIEW OF THE TEMPORAL REGION
We martians had it all figured, a series of canals traversing the whole planet. A way to move…
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That’s my answer too
The Artist’s Way & The War of Art Treating writer’s block is like untangling a really, really long, old rope. As you pull one loop through another, attempting a small liberation, you unwittingly add another knot. This knot and that kink reveal themselves as symptoms of some giant tangle that’s been there decades, and you’re…
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Tinghir
You were born in the mellah Made your feet leather on hot rocks made way for boys with donkeys ever the scrambler Your mother didn’t know you much seventh of twelve, always dashing off. While she did someone else’s washing, you and your twin brother switched places on a dare, then back again “Do…
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Homage to H.D.
I pound on the hermetic door. An echo, heavy as lead, rolls away. I knock again and the ghost of your voice floats out from under it, brushing my face, light as a spider web, light as a mother’s hand out of Ancient Greece. —My angels are my angels. I feel this,…
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DOÑA QUIXOTE
Two riders breached her low, eternal wall of books. Tiny, no bigger than the thumb that turns pages. One was long, lean, the small one meant comic relief, she knew. She’s numb to anything but words on paper. Her eyes watch. She knows, perfectly well, they’re unreal. Her…
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6424 Avenue Z
Before she died, Grandma made me promise that I’d take care of her house. How could I say no? She was the only person in this whole world who didn’t look at me and see a good for nothing loser. Mama didn’t even tell me who my daddy was before she up and left for…
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Glosa on Romance Languages
AL MARGEN DE MALLARMÉ AIRE DE MAR La chair est triste, helas, et j’ai lu tous les livres Ah, la carne no es triste, no lei todo libro. Jamas se me hartarán los ojos ni las manos. Tan enorme es la hora que yo no la cailibro. …
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A Matter of Imaginary Space
I was asleep the very first time I crossed an international border. Sometime between the thirteen hours of existing in a plane, I had gone past the Atlantic Ocean and into Europe, landing in France on a foggy and uncertain morning. I was rushed out of an airplane into the sterile no-land of airports, only…
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OLD MARILYN DOWN ON CEDAR STREET
Folks used to razz me about it, but we’ve all gotten old and I don’t think fertility is what it was before the mill went down and the school closed and folks called me Sterile Marilyn behind my back. It never got to me. Back in those days, lots of gals here wore their kids…
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BOB OVER ON 2ND STREET USED TO BE A PASTOR
I parroted the company line until one Sunday I finally told them the truth about me. My experience of the Divine Christ. I’d been in such darkness. Unimaginable in its gravity. Advisors encouraged me to pray and embrace the answer when it came, so I kept praying but got nothing. Nothing. Finally, I prayed, I’ll…
