These are messages written in dirt and rubbed away with a quick boot-sole— even then, the fear of the trace, the unerasable, the archive that cannot be destroyed— the way a word written on a foggy …

A soft haze swims before my eyes, Like golden sun on autumn willows. The candle sinks and spits and dies, My head sinks down on sleep-strewed pillows. My thoughts, from cold restraint now freed, On…

Despite what Dorothea* has said about the sun scorched land you’ve never really loved her nor sought to make her grand you pollute all the rivers and litter every road your barbaric graffiti …

Spring is here, flowers in bloom, and birds are nesting, Winter is gone, the grey has lifted, ’tis no time for resting. Butterflies, beautiful flutter, as they collect their pollen Busy bees …

Sickly old neighbour, past his use-by, throws mouldy slices of bread from his balcony ‘for the birds’. These land on the ground floor in front of my door, which undoubtedly delight nightshift rats …

O bed, where I have met my love in love… Half-mother of the laughing babes that run Through golden doorways to the outside sun… Bringer of rest and promises above Bewildered waking! For, asleep, I …

High summer’s tyranny has loosed its hold; From their hot zenith my desires descend To genial afternoon. Though I grow old, Autumnal ripeness comes before the cold. The hostile sun, with whom…

A few more of these, and I’ll tell You of being afraid. About being Scared of going to the store, for fear Of some rebuff. Of angst over phone Calls, the nameless stranger selling You loss. O…

In the strict fulfilment of my vows I couched on thorns in charnel ground. I never touched spirits or brews of grain. Such lengths I took to keep the word I plucked the hair out of my head and walk…

they lay them out in a variety of poses: mostly on beds, others on hospital gurneys. Pinned by fluorescence, polished and glossed on mahogany plinths. Purple wool suit. Nightgown with a rip at the …

I used to visit a woman in Berkeley who placed her hand on my spine to seek my sadness. Her room warmed with listening. The Israeli president announced, “we remember the Armenians.” It doesn’t take…

When I sleep poorest, I’m reminded of him. How every three hours my body was a clock. Sat erect in my black bedroom, checked his location, our bank account, that my hands had stopped shaking, that …

A woman created the sun Inside her And her hands were beautiful The earth plunged beneath her feet Assailing her with the fertile breath Of volcanoes Her nostrils quivered her eyelids drooped Weigh…

It was not a real doll’s house. the discarded chest of drawers standing against the fence, a four-storey mansion without gables and windows. Tears of rain ran down its sides; summer sun bubbled the…

Tiddalik say I’m such great thirst I will drain the land and drag my big fat belly across the empty sea Bunyip say I’m gonna gobble you up if you step waters where I sleep and with wet claws I will…

I find it in a field of feathers, pink-crested, a knuckle of bone picked clean by the wind, a pale mohawk mounted on stone. I bend down. Zeroed out of its head are two sockets, two airy planets ful…

We have our own smallholding: persimmon tree, crawl space, stoop, red earth basement, ceiling fans, a job. Hours I’m not sure where I am, flitting through every amber between Gales and Drumcliffe R…

I apologize for my khaki slacks and black blouse. I apologize for my confident walk, my Midwestern way of looking strangers in the eye and saying hi. I apologize for looking like a woman who could …

It gets old. I’m going to kill you. It gets old. They don’t kill me. I get old. And older. All these crap coffee jobs, jobs where I drive when there’s no traffic, all apocalyptic, getting there whe…

Fourteen years old, learning the alphabet, He finds letters harder to catch than hares Without a greyhound. Can’t I give him a dog To track them down, or put them in a cage? He’s caught in a trap, …

I burned your keys in the woodstove up North. It was the big black iron stove, not the small one in the other room that vents wrong. What happened was I drove all the way there from Seattle with th…

I sit on the porch, dangling at the tip of a humdrum afternoon I cling for dear life on the edge of an espresso cup I flex my thoughts I stretch and bend like the light in my eyes and learn physics…