to wear a man out
a floral top pressed to his skin
by a silken breeze
weather brings them closer:
bees emerge
from the soft petals of his chest
to thread each button
through its budding slit—fingers
pollinate in this fashion
the birds, too, how they nest in his
loose drapery, ruffle
their feathers in a sinuous dance
like a man, lithe
& bare-chested in a cage at the club—
arms flimsy, unfurling
there is an attraction to a delicacy
To compose my sexless eclogues, I will
Bed down near the sky like the astrologers
And, neighbor to bell-towers, listen dreamily
To the somber wind-carried hymns.
Chin in hand, high …
The neighbor off to the market for bags of salad
leaves me alone with her baby monitor
I’ve set on my balcony jagged with wood
rain-rotted & scarred with yellow …
[What She Was In For]
You learn not to ask ‘What are you in for?’
but what she was in for was parking on the road
outside her house to get …
by Kim Addonizio I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until …
He came to me in a dream, wet as a newborn in his new skin. I readied him for a bowl of bitter world (the cathedral two blocks away from …
by Susan Dickman for Persis Sundial, nest of thorns, center of the swollen sky in May. I would have thought the birds would issue silence from the canopied branches spread over …
1. from here the earth is a shade of the darkest blue before black i look out the window and i know where we are where the desert looks like the ocean at …
