Category: Poetry

A man washes his horse in the bay, showing muscle, though he never self-reflects as I do. I will not call out, he will not wave,

The town I’m from has a history an excommunication of diversity at the helm of self-serving Caucasian propriety.

Dissolving in another’s joy, Open to another’s hurt, reaching out…. yet he stays on ease of soil, Hard of head, tender of foot.

I have a stack of unfinished poems in my drawer – many there for years, decades – some missing just a word, one perfect word. Nodding undergraduate heads.

I loved the alley bar noise in the Mission district. Sunday mornings our downstairs neighbor played gospel so loud all three roommates left the house. On my mirrored closet I wrote a two-line poem in eyeliner by Alicia Portnoy translated from the Spanish: I am talking to you about poetry / and you say / when do we eat. / The worst of it is / I’m hungry too.

I want to wash this skull with Lysol

And write how much each wet lobe weighs—