1/31/16

my advice:
brew tea, crush herbs,
circulate your bloodlike water,
unclench, unsew, allow
to breathe your tender organs

1/30/16

I turn to the throaty tongue
of the deaf woman
and see her husband
mouth his reply
unvoiced, secret

1/29/16

nightshirt, pills, notepads.
four cans of cucumber seltzer.
a fat book of crossword puzzles.
if you can buy good juju
stuff my bag with gleaming amulets.

1/28/16

the unknown is a broken 

tooth and fear the magnet 

that keeps your dumb 

tongue sweeping

over the empty socket

1/27/16

I run in the blue-black night
because I am scared, because my fears
are scrawny winter rabbits; I run,
a good dog, until I can no longer,
then sleep dreamless by the fire.

1/26/16

every time I wash his hands
he points out three peas
wheeling in the sink strainer;
during nap I fish them out
like wrinkled pearls

1/25/16

cabbage-headed peonies
clench teeth in the rain
but unfold their arms
under the tender feet
of soft-hearted ants

1/24/16

this dim weight
lead-bellied, herbicidal
lockjawed with rust:
the wash of my blood
unchained panacea

1/23/16

my body hums
with dysfunction
streetcar ligaments
buzzing with pain
ne pas toucher le third rail

1/22/16

ice floes course
the night river;
drops of milk
mushrooming
on a plate of ink

1/21/16

he speaks like it's mundane
to misremember the color
your childhood home,
to forget which forked road
took you there

1/20/16

first the tremendous 

dreadful humming of bees -

then an odd rattle 

like a fist 

pounding on a space capsule

1/19/16

this ice cell morning,
a whistle from the east -
this oil spill nightfall,
my thoughts emerge in puffs
of steam, my teeth shake

1/18/16

she is not death, but knows death:

one hand reaching through your pit of fire,

the other fanned backward like a palm leaf,

green snakes ribboned

through her swamp forest hair

1/17/16

the grey pane of water
under the overcast expanse
and between
the city like a glass transom
cranked open, dripping with steam

1/16/16

fingertip of snow
pressed against the fence,
cement glinting with salt,
and the wet black seam
where they are sewn together

1/15/16

ring of fecund women
pouring their warm, thick love -
under my coat
my hollow body clangs
like the tongue of a bell

1/14/16

wet wool smell of thawed dirt
and warming breezes-
my childish heart spelunks
into every ice pool,
slush-ringed, quartz-clear

1/13/16

no longer a baby, he fits a chair
brow studious over blocks; below
his feet dangle
like two small sparrows
frozen mid-plummet

1/12/16

we ran a merry dotted line
of footprints from fence to fence;
while he sleeps
the air goes opaque,
erases the morning's swift course

1/11/16

the day bowie died
we talked about the pretenders,
how to sneer
and yelp
with a baby on your hip

1/10/16

my oyster child
paint over this vexing grit
with salt water wash,
smooth it with the nacre
borne of my love

1/9/16

coffee-soaked morning
happy houseplants and me
humming dire straits in a pile
of sweaters, thrift store sweet
with patchouli and sunshine

1/8/16

children plop like mushrooms

in motherly laps, soft and milky;

my son arcs through the room

like a silver wire -

stray voltage, strange orbit

1/7/16

seven brick sisters
hug the hillside
black lacquer porches
entwined like
ringless fingers

1/6/16

i have always known
these sugartooth houses

the scent of skin that
lingers
around the front door

1/5/16

vein of silt, obscene

washed from the white stalk;

pale moons of celery 

to pile on your plate, pound

to threads between your tiny teeth

1/4/16

maman is out, so stay mon cher
drink rum under cock feather crown
and laugh, cigars and bay leaves
I dug your grave so forgive my touch;
poor mouth packed tight with cemetery mud

1/3/16

gray of slate, tongue of silver
a pile of grey sticks in morning fog
crust of rime, sheet-metal morning
and the momentary shock:
blue sliver of eggshell in dead grass clasp

1/2/16

matchsticks and thread
beget bone-marrow miracles
in a mile of gold foil,
the shaky latin of nuns
gone brown with age

1/1/16

scrape the pot clean,

fill your mouth with coins

and weedy greens -

bitter alchemy of

survivorship