Being dead was the easy part. That part made sense. It was living that was complicated.
Good Moses
The Dollhouse
I moved the dolls about the dollhouse, pushing them here and there. Tried to make them talk to each other. They remained mute objects. The passage from reality to playing pretend was shut. Forever.
Books as a Way of Becoming
If there is one theme I can’t escape writing about in everything I create it is how someone becomes themselves. What choices, circumstances, system, sorrow shaped them into who they are? And will they stay stuck or keep growing into themselves?
Dream of Despair; Living Is Urgent; On Why a Woman Cheats; No Liberty or Justice for All; A Practical English Lesson for Spanish Speakers
One hour to pack all that I own in five suitcases.
Their leather peels like sun-burned skin to the touch. I am
away from home and yet my clothes, my shoes,
my books, the items I carry for luck, the pictures
of people I love are all at my side...
Living My Dream
...but one poet that had a big influence on me was Tony Hoagland. I had the pleasure of being his student in a three-day workshop he taught in Houston back in 2014 entitled “Five Powers of Poetry.” He introduced me to the existence of a muscle I was not aware of having before: “the muscle of specificity,” which I have been exercising and using in my poetry since then.
One-Hitter
Being a legal drug runner made you realize you wanted to start your own delivery service, so you bought a cargo van we couldn’t afford even though we already had two cars and I didn’t say anything about that purchase, like how a few months later when I took you to the mental health crisis center at 2 a.m. because you ripped the glass top off your metal desk—eyes all textbook crazy-like, top lip twitching, me praying you would just get on medication already because your moods and paranoia were always my fault, of course, because even though I was asleep that night I had somehow pissed you off, somehow incited your rage while I slept—and I didn’t say anything when you told the social worker at the mental health crisis center that you had a plan.