Poetry

The Stone Carver’s Note

To whatever home you call home— a door, locked; a mother’s place; a family, that dream state—compare When you find the big stone rock, the one bigger than all that, put your skull face to her skull face, stand Still Let, what?—God, Time, Boredom—shade your eyes Then, with night-sight watch…

The City

After the rain, the alley smelled of wet screen door, the city-stink of piled up garbage and exhaust washed nearly clean. She noticed this only in spring. By summer the rain when it came bucketing down made thick mud of the foulness. The city dug in its heels, spread its…

Black Magic Gun

Here, in 1970, draft papers in hand, my father’s father begged the trigger of a .22 to blast a small piece of his son’s foot into the hillside so he would not leave the mountains to fight jungle communists. My father. His father. The gun. Gun of worn wood and…