Featured Poems

Thunder! Or someone
rolling a metal bin through
a concrete alley.

At thirteen months
you take a lot of spills;
when you see what you want
you get back up.

You take a lot of spills
and the bruises show.
You get back up.
And we’re proud of you.

And the bruises show
you’re not afraid,
and we’re proud of you
even if we are.

You’re not afraid
when you see what you want,
(even if we are,
at thirteen months).

Somewhere in Brooklyn is the man I fired,
silver-haired, grandfather-type, quiet,
when I was twenty three years old
and working at a company so small
they made me a manager straight out of school,
gave me responsibility for the lives
of four Russians and a Pakistani man
who used to bring me hot chocolate
when I came in red-eyed after sleepless nights.
I never had a conversation with this man;
he was at a client's site until the month
before I was asked whom to fire,
and his skills were out-dated, and my boss,
whom I drank scotch with that night,
owned the company, and asked me to choose.
I only remember this much about him:
he wore a wedding ring that shone
against the thick curls coming out of his knuckles,
and he spoke with a thick Russian accent,
and his wrists always smelled of soap.
That's it. And, that I left that company
the same year, voluntarily,
not so very long after I chose him,
and drank that shot with the owner,
and watched a grown man cry.

I think I'd know you in anyone's skin:
a tiger has no subterfuge because she needs none;
I imagine you in my mind's eye imagining nothing,
your stare vacant and unfocused,
your mind unworried, in fact, unthinking,
a luxury never afford to those prey species
that you don't often think about,
the way you often don't think about me.

I met God that night
when my daughter couldn't sleep;
she woke every few minutes
and uttered a short wail;
I couldn't tell you
what it all means,
God said; she had
a cold, I kept finding
her nose running;
I kept the faith,
I protested, as though
I had earned the right
to something; even after
I went in, changed her,
and she fell asleep
against my chest,
I heard wails when I left;
that's not so unusual,
God reminded me
in a forgiving tone;
I stood watch outside her door,
as if protecting
the fragile new silence;
I wasn't shooting for
unusual, I said.

The car pushes forward.
A dark place.
There is a road wrapping this night.
Somewhere there is something
other than these trees
but here
in the space
between spaces
a felled animal
indistinguishable now
by genus or class
gives meaning
to a circle of light.

Compact car
compactly
transporting
two compact
adults,
one compact
child and
a dog so large
her tongue
and tail
are inside
different
zip codes.