ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Dreaming the Tree

Not the tree, but the lake
dreaming the tree, shimmering
this brisk meeting.

Tracing the private finger
along the alphabet of other
upstairs, alone, breathing...

Brushing off the imprint
of where light didn't hit
what accidental beauty.

The trees are receptive;
We're all ears, they tell me, start with
the father and fall from there.

How'd I get this wild? Buried rage
and joy, the violence of neglect,
following impulses like parents.

Oh, money, father,
sister, lover on the other side
of walls, you who brave

the tiniest selection, what
falls away, what gathers?
You have a gift,

she said from underground.
Unearthed, he had just straw,
stones, a blue comb,

Keep this, he said, turning away
in his wheeled metal chair, Hold on,
listen, what else...



Karma

Be careful what you ask for
a long haired boy used to tell me.

His father used to invite him
to watch porn flicks. He lost

interest as soon as I said yes.
There's what you're dealt

and how you play it. He died stubborn,
smoking in a floral chair, enough anecdotes

to savor another 40 years, the cats
licking the dry white bowl. Had his

father's heart, like these dimples
my Mother passed down as currency

or armor. People pay for what they do.
Baldwin said, pillars of debt, our solitude

arching before us like those
vericose roads we're lost on.

and they pay simply...
Pull off at the Red Hook Diner,

by the lives they lead.
Take down your hair.

Order an omelet
Ask a stranger to point.



Dogs

The dogs in this city are going mad.

It's not suitable.

The little gods in them are thrashing.
They've surpassed their indignant
furry little forms.

They're going to go ahead and bite.

Today my lover picked the final scab
off the gash created by two pit bulls
in Washington Square.

She has two pet peeves:
              female waifery and
Irish Nationalism.

I drive my fist up
in her warm under
mind like a small
new planet, like
the tucked-in salmon—
bellied pagan
girl that I am—afraid
of dogs, but my skin

is toughening.



Form and Content

This poem has an anonymous woman in it.

It is going to make you watch the birds
peck out her eyes.

It will so convince you
of the grief of the world,
that you actually enjoy
the way the birds
eat at the woman.

Somewhere there is a boy
searching through aisles
for shiny images
of pieces of women.
His hunger is all he knows.
It gnaws at him like urban dogs.

(I am slipping my newly shaven
legs into the velvet stockings
of this poem, the curve of my belly
slips in its loose elastic,
its cobalt folds.)

Somewhere there is a girl
searching through aisles
for salt and sugar.
All she knows is her insatiable hunger.

It, like fear, makes the ears feel hot
the chest a vacant wind.
The little mouths blowing
at its gummy interior.

They both eat and eat and rub
and stab at the hunger.

Finally animalian,
Their wills like gulls
in Florida winter
alone with their prey.

The hunger is the woman.

The hunger is the birds.

After, the milky silence.

After, the starkness of body,
relief and consequences.

And regret—Could I have
prevented, had I read
the text beneath the text—even
had some residual faith
in the sense of a story.

That terrible surfacing,

We keep thinking against.




Midsummer

I play the ingenue;
mince my rage, don't eat
meat. Talk about wives,
divert my eyes. Lately,
all we do is dip in
and out of the blue
pool. Liquor burning
our throats, steam
of flies with permits to
bite: red cloud
mirroring out.

She's night-strolls
barefoot in white.
Dreaming, led
by a moon's
cool drift.
Mosquitos gossiping; their
long needles threading,
yellow grasses wet
beneath her.

This is how we write our lives.
Away from them.
In a vain hotel; weak
coffee, drapes drawn
over the screen's loud
math. All our plans
and promises stored
on a train. Her
whistles' shriek drowned
in the dark heat,
creak of her effort;
a strong heart
listening, leaving town.
The red in the pool
forming its first word...