The silence was the most disturbing part. The whole world standing staring at these metal sinews tripped and quick-frozen. Now with summer at its heaviest, the air burning with the ingratitude of August and the back-and-forthing of combines. There’s been much hail — we’ve huddled tsk-tsking, watching the sky like a felon. What did we…
The birds and the reeds and the morning cows knee-deep in muck. Empty bleachers where the sky used to live. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Home is horseflesh, this salty lick across the prairies. A silver sky threatening rain. Home is these empty barns and the trail, still warm. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
We are reading poetry, you and I, and I am learning by rote the topography of your neck. My fingers memorizing your hidden rivulets and beautiful bones. Time stops but for the falling of snow, the muttering of the fire, the urgency of birds. Text on the button
Round and round go the songs in my heart. Mechanical surprise. CLICK ON RECORDING TO LISTEN
One man’s voice, a cat at home curled up on the paper and a phone bill overdue. Him, his voice, suddenly there, like a reflection in glass, a hand on your shoulder, and the wind is inside me, in the cage of my chest, swelling. One man’s voice. No greater than another’s. And perfect…
Sun on skin, we lizard in this clearing, two cups of coffee and an orange between us. It’s something I read once, that love is sharing an orange, and so we do, popping the sections into our mouths, into the dark places between words. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
The girl, small in my arms, and eyes wide at the violence of ice. We hurtle together toward home. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
The waking hour. Silver light through the trees and a high moan of boxcars dopplering. The house asleep. The baby breathing. Fear at my throat. Or at least loss, for tempus fugit: that old chestnut. Perhaps we could Peter Pan, forever moving west. Or maybe, as the poet said, west is Everywhere. A verb: we…
