A Chapter in the WarAppian, 95-165 CEUnder orders from Octavian, the hardened captains – Pansa, Carfulenus – patrolled the narrow pass they had determined to defend, with the Martian legion and half a dozen cohorts in their train.Surrounded all about by mulling marshland, heavy bogs, eight miles south-east of Mutina, their suspicions as they carried … Read more
Rental Motes swirled in windows like stars in The Starry Night. Water stains framed mirrors in bursts of gray-gold. The landlord’s lips were thin, her lipstick coral. She braved the tropical storm to unlock closets: her Waterford crystal. Branches needed pruning but all I seemed to do was dream of Heathcliff. I never scrubbed or … Read more
If I Could Only I dream of roses blooming in the sky, of boys with guns, of body parts slung over broken toys in some unholy rite. And through mind-searing noise, I hear the wail of mothers keening for their young. I dream of hell. But when dawn breaks, I wake to find that, silently, … Read more
Krismastime It’s Krismastime Get confetti Slug wile Midnight Fly heights Seeing worlds beam by beam Don’t be a revolutionary, Be a revolution. Rise of the mind Ascension time Compassion is the fashion Send the bird With the scrolls in his talon Falcons mean business Business means fun How to game the game and crush a … Read more
TEACHER I know I’ve made a christ of you the way I gather up the crumbs beneath your table, the way I bathe your feet with my hair. But this blind worship won’t do, and I must take and eat new prayer. Teacher! It was not given me to sit at your right hand or … Read more
The Oath The little hand he holds Is all they could find to give him: Wrapped in blue plastic, A hand once brown, now bloodied and black, The hand of one too young for school, The hand of his daughter, Riven in the charred rubble That had been her room, The hand he held so … Read more
Old Road Sign The sere severed plywood sign painted a modest white was nailed once to spindly posts among the water oaks. Now by accident it dangles, peeling and warped. Underbrush too dense perhaps to let the fool board fall. The paint is blanched so that it fairly imitates the mists oft seen in bayous … Read more
Whom You’re Never Told She pleads with her mantras for years—endless In a hill so tranquil, where she is—she always is There she dwells untold, whom you never know—whom you’re never told Bearing the name; Ujung Geni. The Javanese herbalist who cheats Time and death. She broods in her thoughts no other than To live, … Read more
The First of February Well, here’s a pile of puke on a bank of snow, Yoga-pants-purple, budget-cocktail-blue, Lava lurid as a toy volcano, Day-glo confetti frozen stiff as glue. The fire hydrant’s calked in hardened gum. A Phillies Blunt’s in a bottle of Pepsi Inside a purple Shark Week Slurpee, And it looks like someone … Read more
Hats On for the Happy We couldn’t go in person since the car had grown moss inside. So we sat on Zoom in Birmingham, between a Dublin screen and one in the south of Chicago. We were silent, serious. Our separated frames fused to witness the in-person rejection of otherlessness. Two Canadians entered the gallery, … Read more