The Sister You Imagine
for Kelly In the ravine west of Grade School Hill, We discovered a 5-gallon whiskey bottle, Ridiculous brown totem, impossible giant, Lying in the leaves behind a wooden shack Of a house. She cleaned...
View Article6 Quatrains for My Sister
for Roxann 1 She puts the French fries up her nose, then returns them to their package. Her hungry students take them and eat them, even though they’ve seen what she did. 2 Mom experimented on her...
View ArticleHis Arrival
His hair contains the texture of a long morning in bed. I kneel beside his body, my hands near his head, his breath already in time with my world. Blood marks his forehead. I rub it away, and like...
View ArticleForget Me Not: Autograph Book Exhibit
This summer I will be replacing the Marginalia exhibit in the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry with one on Poetry in Autograph Books. I think finding poetry-worthy marginalia in old books was kind of...
View ArticleThe Bright Crest
You are the surf that rises to the bright crest of the day, the shell road at low tide and the moon above the bay. All is here and here is all. The sun will always rise and set on the two of us and...
View ArticleCrestview Trailer Park, Stillwater OK, 1981
And what I remember is the traffic of trucks, the smell of chlorine sharp as overripe melons busted open in dead grass late summer, the heat of the west-facing metal door in the afternoon and the...
View ArticleAfter October Rain
You lie on the naked bed, the sheets Finishing the spin cycle, the trailer walls Shuddering slightly with the motion. One cat is at your feet, the others Line the rooms like Egyptian statues On guard...
View ArticleJanuary
Shower the world with crackling leaves, Dead and limp before but now firm From frozen dew, this ground your signal To the creatures you watch in the night. Shower the broken places with jangles Of icy...
View ArticleApril 11 Birthday: Mark Strand
Futility in Key West I was stretched out on the couch, about to doze off, when I imagined a small figure asleep on a couch identical to mine. “Wake up, little man, wake up,” I cried. “The one you’re...
View ArticleApril 15 Birthday: Kelly Palmer
–Poem by Kelly Palmer NOTE: In honor of National Poetry Month, each day a person’s birthday will be celebrated with a poem about or by him/her. The poems come from all over the place.
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