Death

American Gothic

after Grant Wood

She sits in her Adirondack chair
on the front porch of a summer afternoon,
overlooking the cutting garden
in her Confederate flag t-shirt
knitting shotgun shells with … Read more

Miracle

Life lies cocooned, amidst
collapsed concrete and mangled steel;
Breathing, sighing, waiting;
Hungry, helpless, wailing…
The dead surround by hundreds,
Thousands, tens of thousands

Yet, a new life lies cocooned,… Read more

Anointed

 for Tyre Nichols

Because they did not see his crown
Because we see it now
Another nobody heading somewhere
Cornered not too far from home
Though farther from than ever… Read more

Relentless Ian

He makes his way
over miles of ocean
gathering strength
looking like a threat.
Bold landfall in Cuba
slices off the power,
leaves families homeless
his eye aimed at the … Read more

Why Are You Here?

for Sayeh (Shadow)

Poet
from the forest-covered mountains
you celebrated the land that jailed you
When the radio broadcast your patriotic song
your jail guards and cellmates asked,
“Why are … Read more

The Last Text

We drove with the sunroof open
So the breeze could tangle our hair.
We rolled through stop signs,
We ran reds as the others did,
And we pressed send on … Read more

5/25/22

I was impressed
the normally heedless traffic
for a second stopped, unprompted
—some goslings crossing.

I think we all feel a little raw about that.

It was likely the same … Read more

Snow and Fire

Image by Claire Matturro

Snow which quells
fire meshes cinders
of cold and heat
falling too late to save
the man and woman
dogs now search for
in stark and … Read more

As It Happens

As it happens, reeling
from losses of strangers,        
Joan Didion always slouched.
She made it glamorous,
articulate, and suave.

As it happens, Desmond Tutu.
Said “You don’t choose your family.… Read more

When another school

shooting crawls
across the bottom

of the screen, she scrambles
upstairs to Dylan’s

den, where she hugs his mended
bear— fixates on his class

photo—the blue
of his eyes over … Read more