Poems
Read Online
The Banyan Review - Walk in the Driving Rain and After Hopper
Terrain.org - Three Poems - Outside the Staples Center in Downtown LA, An early hour is a good hour, To All the Starlings
SWWIM - I have eaten geographies
Straw Dog Writers Pandemic Poetry - First Anniversary
The Ekphrastic Review - Self-Portrait with Black Background
The Ekphrastic Review - A Nun
The Ekphrastic Review - On Me Fait Signe
SWWIM - 5 PM
Forth- Un Mundo
The Ekphrastic Review - Judith Slaying Holofernes
SPANK the CARP - Flower Poem in Two Parts
WordPeace - 170,000 Refugees Arrived in Italy Last Year
Canary - Waiting in Line to be Added to the Endangered Species List
Listen
Godbird
Limosa limosa, you black-tailed
godwit, long-legged prober
migratory mud wader
you seem a god on speed
slurping up plump polychaetes
& mollusks to double your weight,
record holder for the longest flight
ever tracked by satellite:
New Zealand-China-Alaska
& back again, no changing planes
no baggage checked nor claimed
high-tailing it over the Mai Po Marsh
the Yellow River a squirt of murky mustard
glimpsed through smog as you soar
over soggy hills and bogs
what full-steam-ahead stamina
no fear of flight like some of us
sitting in this chrome capsule
aloft on the other side of the world
cutting through cumulus & leaving contrails,
wondering how this makes any sense
gripping the armrests
& praying
keep us safe from ourselves
as the flight attendant calls us to attention:
please fasten your seatbelts
we are experiencing some turbulence
—first published in Tule Review
Sunrise in Zion
she’s dinging the clouds she’s dabbing at switchbacks
banging on boulders the doors of rock squirrels
she carries a slingshot a bag full of pebbles
she’s making them tremble she loves to make trouble
another ricochet—
she’s pacing herself she’s splicing pink ribbons
on cliffs of carnelian she’s burnishing sandstone
the scruff of the sagebrush the muzzles of mule deer
she’s rising then spilling down into the canyon
she’s boring a hole with her light trying to reach
where the rattlesnakes sleep she can sense them
you can’t stop her—
she climbs faster than you can run up the trail
spreads out on a limb she takes her sweet time
it’s summer in Springdale it’s barely called morning
the children are sleeping a curtain is glowing
the bloom is the hour two mothers are running
—first published in The Worcester Review
Walk In a Winter Storm
The snow is flinging pelts that cling
so all the wooded trees look birch,
everything wet-headed with the kiss
of masking flakes. Columns of trunks cut
in half in blinking white. We lumber
round the open field in padded coats
and boots among the fallen, numbed limbs.
It’s witching hour, striking winter’s four.
Who has a better way of showing something
new, covering the past, sweeping clean
a room. Who kisses and asks for nothing
in return? Today, inside my body
in the house I sat, stuck between four walls.
Until you called and said, come love the storm.
—first published in A Constellation of Kisses, Terrapin Books
Poems in Print and Online
2021 Poems "There Was Nothing but Land; Not a Country at All," "The Eallu," and
"Midpoint: Lebanon, Kansas" forthcoming in Aji Magazine
Poems "Canterbury Farm" and "Fuel for the Fire" forthcoming in Silkworm 14
Poems "Autumnal Equinox, Twenty-Twenty" and "Me and Prairie Dropseed" forthcoming in Canary
Poem "In the Country of the Pointed Firs" forthcoming in SWWIM
Poem "Vaccine Research at the St. Charles Laboratory" forthcoming in Radar Poetry
Poem "Driving Up Haleakalā, House of the Sun" forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review
Poems "Derek Drove the John Deere Tractor" and "After the Wildfire" forthcoming in Pirene’s Fountain
Poem "The Outermost House" forthcoming in From the Farther Shore (Calliope Poetry/Bass River Press)
Poems "Walk in the Driving Rain" and "After Hopper" in The Banyan Review
Poem "How Days Are Observed" in The Orchards Poetry Journal
Poem "The Fig Family" in 30 Poems in November Anthology
2020 Poems "Outside the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles," "An early hour is a good hour," and
"To All the Starlings" in Terrain.org
Poem "First Anniversary" in Straw Dog Writers Pandemic Poetry
Poem "I have eaten geographies" in SWWIM
Poems "Empirical Construction, Istanbul" and "The Fortune Teller" in Silkworm 13
Poems "Silueta" and "Queen Bess" in the collaborative print and poetry exhibit, Look Again
Poem "Self-Portrait with Black Background" in The Ekphrastic Review
2019 Poem "Frescoed Clouds" in The Skinny Poetry Anthology, Cherry Castle Publishing
Poem "Morning Glory" in the Visual Arts and Poetry 2019 Biennial
Poem "The Pines" in 30 Poems in November Anthology
Poem "Sunrise Run in Zion" in The Worcester Review (Vol. XL, No. 1&2)
Book Review of The Davids Inside David in Rain Taxi (Vol. 24, No. 3)
Poems "The Dryer, the Birds and the Plumber," "The Deployment of Bees" in Silkworm 12
Poem "Waiting for the Show that is Morning" in Molecule (Issue 1)
Book Review of The Bones of Winter Birds in Cider Press Review (Vol. 21, Issue 2)
Poem "On Me Fait" in The Ekphrastic Review
Poem "Walk in a Winter Storm" in A Constellation of Kisses, Terrapin Books
Poem "5 PM" in SWWIM
Poem "Godbird" in Tule Review
Poem "Solo Hike on the Wilderness Coastal Trail" in Mom Egg Review (Vol. 17)
Short Fiction "Same Day Appointment" in Linea (Vol. 1, No. 1)
Poems "Self-Portrait" and "Fishes" in Voice of Eve (Issue 4)
2018 Poem "Send Me a Photo of the Bottom of Your Shoes" in 30 Poems in November Anthology
Poem "Un Mundo" in Forth
Poems "Elegy for Doris" and "What the Poverty Grass Said along the Edges of Route 66" in Silkworm 11
Poem "Flower Poem in Two Parts" in SPANK the CARP (Pond 44 October)
Poem "C-5 Galaxy Flying North Over South Amherst" in Compass Roads, Straw Dog Writers Guild
Poem "170,000 Refugees Arrived in Italy Last Year" in WordPeace (Spring)
Poem "Waiting in Line to be Added to the Endangered Species List” in Canary (Spring)
Poem "Self-Portrait Hesitating between Music and Painting" in Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry (March)
Poem "Clothesline: Idomeni Camp in Greece" in Common Ground Review (Vol.19, No. 2)
2017 Poem "The Poetry Coat” in 30 Poems in November Anthology
Poem "Fish Who Grow Into Girls" in 56 Days of August Anthology
Poems "Small Extinctions" and "Night Meditation" in Silkworm 10
Poems "I Have No Shadow," "Judith Slaying Holofernes" and "A Nun" in The Ekphrastic Review
Poems "Metamorphosis" and "Self-Portrait on the Sixth Wedding Anniversary" in Ekphrasis (Vol. 7 No. 6)
Book Review of Cutting Room in Rain Taxi (Vol. 22, No. 3)
2016 Poem "30 Days in November" in 30 Poems in November Anthology
Poem "Green Flies Eat Peaches" in Haiku Journal
Poems "Summertime" and "Frescoed Clouds" in The Skinny Poetry Journal
Poem "Migration of Desire" in Naugatuck River Review
Poems "The Motion of Magnitude" and "Welcome" in Silkworm 9
Poem 'Luna Moth" in 30 Poems in November Anthology