May 2023

Space

A grapefruit-sized meteorite
crashed through the ceiling of a bedroom
in a New Jersey home, and people are barely
talking about the circumstances of the intrusion.

Maybe there are too … Read more

Explosion

How to describe history’s grotesque
face, still half-hidden under a mask
of deceit. In some countries, hide
and seek is not a game.
In some homes, the bodies curled inside … Read more

Empty Folders

No prior Prez has smuggled docs,
concealed in boxes among his junk,
containing so much secret stuff,
and now they’re seized, he’s in a funk.

He claims the docs belong … Read more

The Crowning

The afternoon moves at the stop-start-stop
again pace of the mail van
with its messages from long-lost friends
and freshly minted bills to answer
by the next hundred-degree day
which, … Read more

Don’t Take my World

Today I walked familiar streets,
stood where avenues cross,
where people meet.
I smiled at a lady with a toddler in hand,
bought a pretzel at the corner stand,
saw … Read more

A Week of Shootings

The black kid who rang the wrong doorbell
expecting his siblings is recovering at home.

The white teenage cheerleaders fled
after one climbed in a mistaken car.
One was treated … Read more

On Lies Many Shapes

My 4th-grade math teacher would categorize lies by shape and weight. Headaches on test days were triangles (angles acute and obtuse). Bruised knees and hallway trips were trapezoids (competing sides, … Read more

R. U. D.

Thirty-three engines rumbling
thrust building, years of
research and development
on the line, wild hopes of
Martian settlement, eternal
fame and glory, first steps
taken on an amazing path.
Starship … Read more

Careless Consequences

The seas are alive,
Swimming with life.
Dolphins leaping with grace and precision.
A seahorse clinging to the neon green seaweed,
Manta rays roaming freely and undeterred.
Great whales breaching … Read more