Glowing cross red neon perched
like a robin on the church roof vaulted
made of stone thick tresses of ivy
spill from it afternoon light scatters broken
images of the Virgin across the backs of pews
but what is more beautiful the smell of flowering
Hollyhocks that bulge from a leaning chain-link fence
their heads fat and white and clustering into the shape
of a cross some small procession for the dead Sweet Boy
cannot figure as he …
My dad’s letter sways the mailbox slant.
His name, reduced to a number, weighs
heavy, loosens the red plastic flag
from its hinge.
Prison is a war …
I.
My mother’s nightly ritual: sitting
on the floor in front of the hallway
mirror, a wet comb, the right
amount of hair. She ropes
a plastic pink curler
Most kids are obsessed with things—fantasies, foods, films—that they eventually outgrow.
It’s only natural. Our taste ages as we do.
But for me, it’s been 15 years since my parents got me …
The wind grows furious as the grounds
around my house sicken. My neighbor’s
been pointing at a tree bordering our
properties with a gash down its trunk.
All I …
i.
she brought an island’s worth of family to the states, her eye beaconed the promised land of mammon, and we came. when her dementia was really bad she worried she …
by John Ashbery Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night, Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes. But …
(The black mold fungus Stachybotrys chartarum was originally discovered on the wall of a house in Prague in 1837. The average person inhales at least 40 conidia (fungus …
Filling her nails with the perseverance of the annoyed, all she could think of was how tired she was from taking care of everything, every detail in their life together. …
rain is wetter, colder, alley cats are hungrier, each day breaking open like a crow-barred lock, the sky a grainy screen, the windy corners, and each night, heavy husbands shut out …
