Just beyond the road’s edge
in the country of black-eyed Susans
and Russian thistle—

just beyond the crumbling line
where asphalt stops and washboard
gravel begins—just beyond the turnoff

Where fall hangs on into late December are

scattered bay leaves, almond-shaped to the
petiole, petiole as boat draft, wake, tiny

battleships and destroyers from the

admiral’s sky vantage, arranged in naval
maneuvers on the asphalt expanse of Hastings

She had a baby
only two weeks ago –
2 pounds, 6 sticks of butter, a sack of flour
a bowl of apples, a bag of caramel sugar
2 pounds of a girl.

She weeps into the bowl of her hands,
her breasts full, her womb a spent sack
her baby, no bigger than a pup…

Tweet, tweet, tweet,
tandaradei,
set the scene
back in the day;
inside and outside
the heat for master and slave
too hot to handle
even in the basement,
even in the shade

Direct the intention seaward, where kelp forests sway like cathedral tapestries,
And the hush of the deep folds inward, a silence vast enough to hold the ache of longing.

Let your thoughts unfurl like sea anemones, soft and trembling,
Reaching for the light that dances down in scattered gold

three-legged cat crouches in the alley
one-eyed horse at pasture
white sun breathes on white stone

green figs cling
to the youth of their branches
resist their gradual purpling

soles of shoes

When I left you alone at night after three it was I think
The storybook moment and perfect ending: three dead
Maji dropping from the sky bounce off clouds. Spiritless
We disappear within the screams, the laughter; Pro-

Publica gone DOA. I’m almost nauseous having thought
Of the way we cook with human flaw; coleslaw dignity.

My childhood friend says:
I don’t believe in dinosaurs anymore.
I laugh
but he insists
he’s not kidding.
Stunned,
I search his eyes
for a glimmer
of the person
I’ve loved

It told me that I have a problem
I have to solve, that I’m the puzzle.
I could feel it study me, as I
researched myself. It taught me
if I go deep, it’ll all work out, a
mastermind of configuring the pieces
of my psyche, which it said in Greek
means “soul.”

Tonight, I choose to place my singular attention
on the moon, the orb of dust and rock
and its ghostly reflection of the burning star,
and breathe in the crickets and the owls.

And it is in the lightless chill that I wonder—
what does it mean to arrive, to find
comfort in a destination reached.

It’s not me.
The polish lingers,
black onyx screams
on each finger.

It’s been five days.
My nails are lit.
I’m not sure why
I try it.

in the basement
of the bi-level
where I live
with my parents
and older sister
in a small middle class
suburb of Chicago

For fourteen nights
Unnerved and trembling
We place him in an unfamiliar bed
As alien as we are to this white-blond Asian boy,
Our sudden son
His scalp razored bald
Tenderly, we wonder, by his grieving birth-mother

“Do Not Disturb” — active
Yet a cunning code still pierces
Viciously, into cloud files — memory/hate/love
Restore automatically if:
Emotional thunderstorm detected

Mother took the photo
With a Kodak Brownie box-camera;
The black-plastic handle,
Gray knobs of the 1947 model.
In the square view-finder lens,
Upside down

Deep in the heart of the countryside
The tiny sturdy two-teacher school stood
Hidden between the tall trees and fading footsteps.

Many years ago, it finally closed its doors,
To all except for the traveling vagrants
Scurrying mice, spiders, wasps and black crows.

How could they have missed it? Surely there was
wetness and rising tides, juices that rampaged

in spring, stamens and carpels in the garden,
swelling and presenting. A whole paradisiacal world

Don’t go stalking my spirit
when I pass.

Let me fly so you can go on.

The end is the end, but it isn’t, too.

A faint waxing half moon of pink has risen
temporarily (I hope) where I gouged
my forehead on a painted hook screwed
into the door upon which to hang a holiday wreath

When I die, bury me in a bright red dress,
the colour of the blood that pushed through my veins
the fire of life and love’s caress.

When I die, bury me with red bright lipstick on,
to dilute the grayscale of mourning
brought by the passers-by.

My aunt had a dear friend named Clara Sandoval
But my mother did not approve of her at all.
One day when we were alone, momma said:
“I do not like that Clara Sandoval.”
She added “and I don’t want you to trust her either
No matter how much chocolate she brings you.”

Spearing the oil-sheen shell,
the feathered and gossamer wing,
the snail-curved scales,
Marley pins their still life
now dead, arrays in prismatic
patterns like Fibonacci,
recaptures their stained-glass flight.

It seems as if you still stroll across a fallow field,
Walking forever past all the things Nirvana offers,

And you stumble onto the right words that take
Their place around the Great Mandala,

And the air that rises on the road you left behind,
And everything that cannot speak after you—Now

Red ribbon around the bark of an old oak tree,
a present to the woods, a marker to a walker
down its dirt paths. This afternoon I am the walker.
I pause at the tree and wonder at the sight
of a violent color tied up amongst mineral green and dirt.