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I spend my days groping for the latch of a closed door – Henry James

this country is a glamour

imposed upon the forest

I like the idea of limiting the number of words in a poetry collection in the way a painter limits a palette. A vocabulary made of basic words. Words repeating, showing up in multiple poems, shifting in meaning, standing in for complex thoughts, experiences, memories. Private metaphor. Memoir in code.

A spoon, a bird, a pie, a chesterfield.

I 

     peered into the meringue 

      of his 
mouth

stiff peaks         sticky

on my tongue

*experiment with mixing text at Language is a Virus*

you are lollipop

you are sugar

kiss you are

moss you are

the rain has my heaven,

and all this is picture to the rainbow

*using a variety of tools at Language is a Virus*

A restaurant in an airport parking garage, ornate as a gilded jewelry box. Seats one. There is no need for a maître d’. The cook stands before a single flame, hands you a dish. It’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted and you have no one to describe it to.

I don’t remember how

I got the scar on my

right thigh shaped like

the forced smile I give

distant relatives who

motion me in for a hug.

hands palm

like magician’s coins

the bags

of day

old bread.

I once attended a reading that was novel/engaging. The poet read rapid-fire. All of the images were startling and my synapses fired nonstop. Later, trying to recall the poems, I felt like this raccoon trying to wash cotton candy. 

I dreamt that bees surrounded me and no one would come near. I was convinced I had become their queen. I felt powerful and lonely.

It turned out, their real queen had landed on my back and they were, in fact, surrounding her.

I was merely lonely.

I make promises I know that I can’t keep, but I make them anyway, believing in a future where they come true and I am vindicated by their happening

We used to write obituaries and submit them to the local paper. Now we post a tweet, upload a Facebook video, sepia filtered, text overlayed, guitar strumming softly in the background.

This is still love.