Poetry
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Grace After Meals
My father stands over the pots
in my house, baking sweet potatoes,
giving me back the taste
of a world where mothers still exist.His hands slice thin answers
to my … -
Kanafeh
I am alone, sitting in a restaurant in Jerusalem.
I order a Kanafeh for me and my friend—
who never arrives. The waiter makes a noise when
he puts the … -
1. Opening, from The Burden of Nisan
The poem carried her
through timeshe lay reading on the balcony
on a sun-wombed bordera chrysanthemum ignited
the garden’s actuality
a well of gravitybirdsong harpooned the air
even her mother was …
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Middle School
They’ve gotten my classes crisscrossed
sulking here swallowing the wrong,
compacted in the regular classroom.
I belong
in a seat that calls my name
not here in …
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Knaackstraße 82, 1996 (Schicksalslied)
Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
(Johannes Brahms, Deutsches Requiem/Psalm 84)I
Keusch bewahrt,/ In bescheidener Knospe: In downstairs Berlin bars she meets young men
while machines rip the city’s … -
Cling
Just gravity pulling what free
bodies it touches down, and at times
their refusal. Despite this shaking over
the mouth of the trash, a plate
holding its residue. Adherence the … -
After the Idea of the Flood Recedes
with borrowings from Rimbaud, “Après le Déluge”
in a turbulent dream,
I wake troubled, confused,
a tabby nosing round the sheets…the market stalls are dressed in meat,
bavetted, boned, … -
Eros / ion
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