Tether
Down the road near the place where we buried the arms and the legs and the heads a man shot a hummingbird out of the sky, the explosion larger than anything had ever been, and I remember you angry and blaming everyone, especially me, crows glistening around you protectively, the statue of the Blessed Virgin […]
Venetian Red
In the dream muddle, lolling across mama’s lap, the blue-gray of her unwavering gaze – and just beyond, the gibbous moon, a yellow birch leaf still on black water, then – late! Tower bells clanging and so we’re off, my companions in tow, racing through shadowy streets cobbled with eyes, teeth, blue veining the ancient […]
Tourists Do Not Touch the God
When I went to Earth last year I met a number of strange local gods. Out there, the local gods are a lottery— you might get a tyrant or you might get a saint, and whatever you get will color your village or your town or your metropolis with its moods and fears and its […]
Time Capsule
asphalt, cracked and faded stippled with yellow weeds forcing their shaggy points toward the light swings, slumbering silent in the fall of topaz light their chains eaten, pitted by iron oxide the red dust sifts and falls tiny dunes below are hidden witness walls, once painted bright stained now with age, and peeling layers in […]
And then the stars
After my father died, I spent my summers working in the canneries on the edge of town. Days of sweat and machinery thunder, nights full of hard men and dark country drives past shadowy fields of sleeping alfalfa. Weekends spent down at the tavern trading old stories for the next round of cheap domestic […]
