How time slowed when any thought
or apprehension of the next instant
vanished (no obligation, then or later),

how in that long moment, all at once,
yet without surprise, how what was close
was present in a sudden suspense,

as such things rarely exist
as they did then, each apart from all, <...Read more

Our paper house sat
on the banks of the red river
and though mother
wasn't like other mothers

I was like other girls
trapped and lonely

and painting pictures
in the stars. I was slick

with old birth or early longing,
already halfway between

who I wanted to be...Read more

I took the night train there,
never dreaming.
To cross the straits
my boxcar crept onto a barge-there was screeching,
several tremendous thuds,
then with a growl
we sailed.
I was already half-awake,
anxious for a volcano, neolithic shrines,
islands to explore
off the main island...
...Read more

We've been told space
is like two dark lips colliding
like science fiction
it outlines a small cosmos

where fear hides in a glow
where negative space

becomes a place for wishing
a constellation of hazy tunes

of faint sharp vowels
a glossary of meteors

a ...Read more

makes
the air
quiver
and dart

the throat
ache

to call
makes

the heart
cheer

the ear
keen

to the sheer
glorious

windfall
of oriole

veery
vireo


About this poem
"There is ...Read more

There were strollers, outgrown, circulated till a wheel fell off.
Anna's infant RockaRoo went to Francesca then to Sophia
who gave it back to Anna when she had the twins.
Travel cribs traveled between homes and the green vest
Sophia knitted for Ming's first was worn by all the next babies.
Onesies, drawstring gowns,...Read more

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes,
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:
And therefore my heart will bow, when dew
Is dropping sleep, until God burn time,
Before the unlabouring stars and you...Read more

Our ancestors in the earth are not
Ashamed of us. The strong smell
Of dirt, the delirious rabbits, the
Clocks are all disappearing. A

Prehistoric gift acquires the smell
Of salt. I grasp onto winter's tail.
Some water plants are lying around.
Smell & taste, I have had good

Luck in ...Read more

The child tells me, put a brick in the tank,
don't wear leather, don't eat brisket,
snapper, or farmed salmon-not tells,
orders-doesn't she know the sluice gates
are wide open and a trillion gallons
wasted just for the dare of it?

Until the staring eye shares that thrill,
witnessing: I am just ...Read more

Once I was:
lone brown spot
in a garden

of upright stems
They said
what do you have to say

let your dry lips open
let cocoa powder
rain onto our desks

they stared at me
for six days
as if I were a peach pit

as if by lunchtime
I would be ...Read more

Why is anyone in the world so terrible. Real catastrophe
and catastrophizing. If we only knew when it was going to happen.
I saw you put your hands on the floor. Intimacy without disturbances.
The scope here of memorization, planets. The history of children

sitting still. You are so cute in all your facebook photos...Read more

The birds were louder this morning,
raucous, oblivious, tweeting their teensy bird-brains out.
It scared me, until I remembered it's Spring.
How do they know it? A stupid question.
Thank you, birdies. I had forgotten how promise feels.


About this poem
"In an uncollected early essay called '...Read more

Here are old things:
Fraying edges,
Ravelling threads;
And here are scraps of new goods,
Needles and thread,
An expectant thimble,
A pair of silver-toothed scissors.
Thimble on a finger,
New thread through an eye;
Needle, do not linger,
Hurry as you ply.
If you ever would be ...Read more

That whisper takes the voice
Of a Spirit, speaking to me,
Close, but invisible,
And throws me under a spell
At the kindling vision it brings;
And for a moment I rejoice,
And believe in transcendent things
That would make of this muddy earth
A spot for the splendid birth
Of everlasting lives, ...Read more

This wall is a great stairway, walls
are things that shoot up, keep out, line
the places where we mark the halls

that carry our names. The busts
of this one and that one, this history
is in the hard labor of hearts, thrusts

of piston and valve. I sit down
at the first house, dizzy at the ...Read more

Your eye moving
left to right across
the plowed lines

looking to touch down

on the first

shoots coming up

like a frieze

from the dark where

pale roots

and wood-lice gorge

on mold.

Red haze atop

the far ...Read more

Sisterhood of the Good Death, Bahia, Brazil
August 14, ca. 1850
Tomorrow, after we've led the procession
following Our Lady of the Good Death
back to our chapel, two hundred Sisters,
in our white eyelet headwraps and dresses
and the company of the Ancestors,
will dance a Glory samba, with our neighbors <...Read more

Here is how I control my heart: I string each thought one behind the next, like beads.
I wear the answers I am waiting to give. The jewelry becomes heavy as soil.
My long blink is a scream & a yes. There are things I have to say, but they do not yet know the questions they must ask. & a blink is no word; if they misunderstand-
...Read more

at 93, you determined to pick up and go-
and stay gone. the job nkrumah called you to,
to create, at last, your encyclopedia africana
(encompassing a continent chipped

like wood beneath an axe, a large enough
diaspora to girdle the globe, and a mere four
thousand years) was either well-deserved
...Read more

My wife's new pink slippers
have gay pom-poms.
There is not a spot or a stain
on their satin toes or their sides.
All night they lie together
under her bed's edge.
Shivering I catch sight of them
and smile, in the morning.
Later I watch them
descending the stair,
hurrying through the ...Read more