"Poetry," "Cleaning the House," and "Leaving Again"

"Friendship & Other Unknowable Places" and "Diagnosis at the Walk-in Clinic"

"Train People" and "Leaving Philadelphia"

"First Letter to David" and "On Wanting to Be Loved"

All the Meg Johnsons
would like to kill me

I’m in conversation with Helen Dudley about “Reed-Song” 
her poem published in Poetry, 1915.

All day Iphigenia 
so far from the man I came to see.
Haven’t we tired of famous men? Shouldn’t I 
have my shoulders back, chin straight—I was given graces
that distract from the tissues in my

17.
 

He who left home built the biggest steel bridge over the long river

The bridge was a success for millions of people
But he who built it died on it

His mother back in the village

Here Rests An Alien At Her Foreign Home. 

The internet is shit.
The time is wrong. 
No one lets me eat
what I want. Here 
is a roach trying to swim 
upside down. Here 
is a garden full of

Rhapsody
 

I opened the window so I could hear people.
But all I heard was the wind rushing,
fine garment of nothingness, like tulle.
You sent me a handout listing various
cognitive

it's dead at the bar so I say
"sure but I'm not in college
and I'm not wearing underwear

Dream that you are asleep 
beneath a mosquito net 
next to your mother
who is always singing. 
Forget that you are sixty. 
Time flies when you’re 
surviving with meals to eat, 
people to talk

Pan and the Nanny Goat

                         After ancient Pompeii marble sculpture
 

The God of the Wild yanks his lover's chin hair, 
clasps her knee, his godhood fully aroused.

If I put on my socks from
seventh grade
if I told you I was made
of strawberry filling would you

"Intake" and "Progress"

THE TENSION

Sliced peach cool

under fresh yoghurt,

steaming creamy coffee,

the slow, dark wake of an October morning.

Difficult to pull myself

away from comfort and

the waves of

fire inherent spectrum

the martyr no longer I walk beyond the cradle the peach tree the alphabet

a horizon infused revolution imagine the light the door in the mountain

stitches of time

along with the memory

The height of fall.  The streets are buried in leaves.  Morning is rising.  Red-tinged shadows extend over the green, crunchy carpets.  The air took on its own

MEASUREMENTS

How great must a shock be to determine X number of years? We go to therapists to answer such questions. To be told: shock of nth degree yields so many years. Powers on which to

Reverse Invocation 
 

To the god of thresholds: for is it not
tradition to call upon a deity

with a voice crackling like the lull
of aged leaves, of a petal shifted

by wind. To the

dogged night

the moon is black

or green i go

a little nuts

flaying flowers

from the brocade

i cord the stems

& swallow the steak

tenderloin

Hollowing in Three Parts

1

Although it’s the last day of September and the talons of winter have taken hold and although between the two of you you’ve lost sixty-five pounds in the

America

The radio is on a pledge drive

and living in America

is starting to feel like staying 

in the bad hotel.

Nothing to hear but selling

or silence. I’m thinking of the

Ja

I keep writing about orgasms as crying & then I think about that.
I spent too much money on baby pink earrings & ginger
because the men in my life believe me & still starch their

I tried to look / like I was looking for someone above...