Late Words for the Moon
There you are, old moon, old rock-in-the-sky, still holding when I rise on shaky legs for water to wash the bitter powder of the sleeping pill from my tongue. How have I come so untethered from your pull I must be chained to the time-release anchor of these capsules? Tonight, all I have failed to […]
Outlasting Energy
I’m looking out the window for the promised meteor shower, rain of fire the heavens release, while my thumb walks a dry pattern on the brasswound top strings of the guitar; wood’s vibration against the bone above my heart reminds me man’s first instrument was probably the drum. This room, hollow as a drum, trembles […]
The Valley of Sleeping Women
One iron-cold hour still divides night from dawn. Mist hangs smoke-thick over the river, a blanket to hide its endless motion. Outside the tavern, the tide-steady pulse of police lights throws an underwater glow over the parking lot, the knotted school of late drinkers shivering under clouds of breath-smoke, drawing the small fires of cigarettes […]
Janet Buck- The Laundromat
Day turns like chugging dryers. Time, a simple laundromat. Put a quarter in a dream. Watch the heat destroy the cotton of the field. Hours in wads too big to churn. He reads a tattered address book, scratching off the names of friends who’ve beat him to a pending grave. Heel up. Hold. Think. Be […]
Birdwatching
Incessant flight– I sleep in air that catapults garnered cloud, staring at moons, chipped porcelain, paint removed by probing page. Love below me on the ground, a broken china doll searching for glue as lonely women masturbate. A frigate bird and ship at war, wingspan wide, tailored to drumming old defeats until they promise fish […]
