Wanda Vibing

Wanda has moved beyond collisions and is looking
   for vibrations. The lab’s cat makes too much static,

so they nudge him gently past the door.
   Wanda thinks about what cats are for–

this one doesn’t prowl the courtyard or hunt
   the building’s mice, but reposes in a patch

of sun, its ease reverberating off the walls.
   At her computer, with a soundtrack made of distant light,

Wanda isn’t taking any calls because
   she’s listening with headphones to the murmur of it all.

Nursing

The midwife kneeled beside me
and when she stroked my thigh

on the toilet seat I noticed the image
of a baby tree, wavering in the deep-

rust stain of the clawfoot …

To The First Speaker

You—who are kin to all clans;

You—who called the rain       we’ve been drowning in for eons;

      did you flinch to find   a shard …

The House at Christmas

Its wide dark eyes–
the picture windows of a 60s bungalow –
reflect rooms in black lakes
cold and mirrored as though slick
with tears and ice.

Early, before the day …

Blue Sky MRI

they leave me in a lino-cubicle
another bargain blue basket
for my bra and jeans
I pace behind the curtain
let the liquid settle

the doctor tells me to …

On the Tallest Horse in the World | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

On the Tallest Horse in the World

Mirrors are not occult with bedsheets,
no communion of pipes and tobacco:

there is nothing— farewell Big Jake, alas—
nothing here approaching a wake.

I thought of him over …