Category: Poetry

1. cutting a pear / 2. the storm petrel does not land until it dies

On the longest day of the year / we wait for nightfall, slouching on / your grandmother’s porch, pack / of cigarettes balanced on the arm / of your plastic lawn chair.

I am the place where / hooves join dirt / where fur and flesh / meet and cut apart

in velvet grasp of eternal night / a building wrapped in strips of glass, light / slicing bravely through starless dark / so utterly alone, fragile before shadows.

I’m so glad / you killed her— / my doe-eyed sister / who could not read or dance or carry a worthwhile conversation, / who had no might despite her name / but powered a thousand ships with her blood.

I never understood the feeling in my stomach / When witches and monsters came / On the TV. For years I thought / They made me afraid

I bought her a pair of gold earrings that writhe when she walks. / They bring the caramel curve of her neck.

As you probably already know, / I was the only one of my friends to survive / that night. / Sometimes I feel like surviving / was the easy part.

Prickly back tendrils / alert me to your presence / at my bedside. I pull the blanket / up over my shoulder like a lover /
after sex or kissing me / goodnight.

Do not give your worries to other people, even if they have the same condition. It may harm them. Keep them in your mouth, a list under your tongue.