After Little Observation

There was a glass of red wine in a small, dark colored glass sitting the sill of the bathtub. It didn’t tip or shake, but it was visibly unstable—temporarily and, for the moment, perfectly balanced on two uneven surfaces. The light was even and yellow across the room, tossing dark shadows behind the corners of… [Read more…]

I Pray to the Southern Preacher

The subway track over head stretches out and I can see it in different colors, made of clay and different canvas textures against a backdrop of a variety of greys and browns. Its crawly legs move like mechanical bugs as the road narrows in. Neon signs, buzzing and hideously florescent, are advertising discounted furniture placed… [Read more…]

Tea in Autumn

The plant rubs its dead leaves all over itself hands to make friction heat I let the gas click a few times. It clicks on and presses against the red paint. One million tiny fingerprints thumbprints on Christmas cookies. all of it is completely pointless.

“All of the Trees in the Field Will Clap Their Hands”

A fly rushes over the top left of my peripherals. The arc is kind of perfect and it reminds me of a negative of a shooting star           t over the whitewashed walls of my room. The fly lands first on a bottle of hair mousse, with some dried pro duct… [Read more…]

I’ve already been home for years.

Poetry takes restraint, quiet and other things that I don’t have. I step up to the corner, Twentieth, the fountains and the Steps. I look up to find a promised family of tourists running and posing in front of the Stairs. I wait comfortable and familiar at the Cirle and I cross the bridge, over… [Read more…]

I want to be fair, honest, and simple.

I want to be fair, honest, and simple. I try to be generous and forgiving, gracious and feminine. Generous in touch, lightly across a forehead in the dark of your room, with all the walls cool and close. Grey morning in the window and coffee bitters are griny ice and sour gin. I want to be fair,… [Read more…]

“Stay Young, Go Dancing”

I couldn’t count all of the people crossing over the Schuylkill. It was apocalyptic and eerie to see so many people of the city in one place. I started getting lost, looking too far into their mannerisms and gestures. I ran into a little boy as he made a break for the other side of… [Read more…]

Wash

I’m still completely stuck in the electric buzz of a broken city streetlight and the winterscape–the one that swallowed Philadelphia alive and when it snowed I stuck my tongue out on thirty-fourth and I tasted all of the metallic air mixed in with the little pieces of sky. Back then, I felt like we were… [Read more…]

Cataplexy

The scaly book pages are moving around on the surface– they have scaly fish skin for paper. And each one has a little hole and I tied ropes to all the little holes. I pull at them from below.

Springing Gardens, Thirty-Three Feet High