We’d sprayed gold paint into paper bags and huffed the fumes. Detached from body, self a phosphorescent bubble ahover in some bright-colored world, somewhere askance from here. My boyfriend passed out. Sometimes, when one says love, she means A sour drink that tastes better than loneliness or the door that leads out … Continue reading
In my head there are more teeth Than mercies—-John Ciardi You can keep your cornfields, silos, Autographed bibles and gooseberry jam. Bye-bye frozen road kill and frost-bitten toes. I wanted cocktails named after movie stars, The Pacific Ocean, surfboards find the curl In a wave, the beach which is my home And sun-cured girls … Continue reading
Hear her sudden voice mortified by dirt walls. Speaks incessantly, murmuring a faint song then remembering sunbeams, silken umbrellas pink pearls. She lies outnumbered by acidic bottles rotten by dust and rust. Obstinate, undertaking obscurity moistened by twilight, she cries while with untrained fingers I scan for sensible lines in my ear full of labyrinthine … Continue reading
Forgive me if I did not give thanks for the setting sun lighting flames in all the windows across the lake, the way love flares and falls to embers, while the evergreens fold their arms and the white birch whispers. Forgive me for all the Creeping Charlie I tore up by the roots despite its … Continue reading
The Playwright drives a dark blue Mazda mini-van, plenty of room in the back for all those characters who follow her, those early women flyers knocking on the windows, about to burst into the higher air. Director of the Writing Center rides her 1980’s bicycle, a white Mesa Runner wedding present from her … Continue reading
There is comfort in animals They give themselves so completely, so openly to their lives, to today without any yesterdays or tomorrows. They accept the inherited patterns, without remorse or exultation. Move easy in their agility and grace, Accept their own faces, their bodies. Even the baggy elephant doesn’t mourn before the mirror, beautiful tiger … Continue reading
for harmonica You suck on 4 and bend it like a hickory switch until just before your chewing gum loses all its flavor. Now slide down to 3 for a draw and a blow, but make it quick – if you take time for a lap dance, you’re taking too long, you have … Continue reading
So I went to school, and, once I’d learned to read and write, waved goodbye to my classmates, as I began scribbling in the margins and then on blank white paper proper, reading unassigned books, buying magazines for everything but the pictures, even scanning the morning newspaper. I kept in touch, observed closely even … Continue reading
there is a line in a novel that has long since been lost, reading: “A woman moves in three different ways, and those that make figure-eights with their hips have it.” the thrall of it wore off a long time ago but that doesn’t prevent my muscle (ha!) memory from working against me in … Continue reading
Vincent Van Gogh 1890 He leans against the jamb, flicks a thick, damp brush. I point to the flowers. I gathered them for you, I say, and in your white vase, yellow chrysanthemums, and white ones, with some pink and red what-are-they-calleds up in front. He pinches the brush in a cloth, looks at … Continue reading
Coe Review 