Poems

The Fluffy Rebellion: Carnage in Cottontail Corner In the far corner of the petting zoo, where rabbits once nibbled carrots with demure delight,a revolution brewed between hay bales and water bottles under the soft glow of night.Tired of being poked and coddled, of wearing bow ties and bonnets, the bunnies hatched a plan.They sharpened their […]

The Doppelganger Someone wearing my coat was seen downtown,walking the block where I usually turn around,same height, same walk, same tilt of the head,my neighbor saw him and thought I was dead.Because he looked like me but something was off,the way he held his hands, the way he scoffed,at the coffee shop waitress who asked

The Drawer Marked Tomorrow The mahogany-hearted chest is a harbor for the ships of my intentwhere every ink-stained vessel is a ghost of the time I spentI cataloged the promises like the counting of the iron-shod menbut the ink is fading into the wood like a bloodstain in a denI swore a life of amber

The Dry River The women’s cooperative built the sand dam without permission,which is the traditional approach to the missionof water management in a village where the water rightsbelong to the authority that never comes through the nights. The dry river became less dry behind the sand dam wall,the dry river became a shallow pool in

The Devil in Dollhouse Lace The clock was always going to land here–I watched the hands from the beginning,and understood there was a destination somewhere in the spinning.She set the whole arrangement in motion before I arrived at the first scene,with a patience that precedes whatever I thought the beginning of things had been. She’s

The Doppelganger Protocols There are documented cases going back centuries in the record —The Doppelganger, the fetch, the shade — each one anchoredIn the folklore of every culture independently arrived —Too consistent to be coincidence, too specific to have thrived.On invention alone — something in the collective experienceOf the human species has produced this adherence:The

The Conquered Fear There is a specific kind of fear that only conquest cures,not the removing of the danger but the building that endurespast the danger, through the danger,into something on the far sidewhere the fear is still alivebut it has no operational hard side. The conquered fear is not a fear that you have

The Contractor Who Said No He said no to the bid that would have made the decade comfortable,He said no because the spec was wrong and the structure troubled,His professional conscience and his code-trained engineer eye,He said no and walked away and that is where I rely. The contractor who said no when the money

The Comfortable Anger The comfortable anger is the kind you are allowed to have,The kind that fits inside the framework and the graph,Of acceptable emotion in the system as it stands,And comfortable anger keeps the power in the hands.You want my anger to be comfortable and contained,Expressed in the acceptable and carefully maintained,Registers of the

The Beautiful Walk There’s a way that he moves through the world on his legsThat don’t cost him a thing and never begsFor permission or space or an apology noteHe just walks into rooms and the room takes noteAutomatically naturally without designThe beautiful walk is nothing like mine The beautiful walk through every open doorThe