Selected Poems

Raven

With me most days, it smells life. 
I find small digs in my skin,
and sometimes feathers brush my ear.

Outside chapel, black birds find each other,  
form cities, raise generations of shadows 
while I squirm on the worn bench.

At night the wind comes through the sashes,  
makes my dry house sing against its will;
my shutters shake like weak elbows. 
It’s then, tiny enough to fit in my pillbox, 
the raven sleeps.

I would give this small pinching thing to you,
then smoke salmon caught 
from the river as it left the sea. 
Hang the shining flesh over green wood, 
so together, you, and I, and the raven 
could eat the body of the old soul that swam so far, 
then the roe, its tiny stars, its possibilities.

Other Sins More Deadly

I wish to be a three-toed sloth,
so on my head when I fall into sleep,
a researcher might place a Petri dish
of water blessed by every known religion;
to sleep with all assurance that sleeping 
is divine; to wake and show 
that through the night I’d kept the dish aligned;
to stay ignorant of jungle news;
mirror-eyed, bemused;
to fecundate my silky loves sparingly, 
be slow to mate; to live 
in the world, disguised as the world, 
unnoticed as a stone, and so sprawl
moss-like in a tree, aging inconceivably.

Employees Banquet

In the forest, pigs snuff truffles,
white for cream sauce, black for shadows
and after, tied with bibs
for the annual employees banquet,
they taste millet and toast as unique—
separate from pumpkin—a revelation
when, all year, all they’ve had is slops.
They’re on their best behavior, powdered 
and bathed, touching cloven toes together
the way schoolgirls cross white-socked ankles.
They’re served one truffle,
on arugula, spindled with oil
enough to break their hearts
the way we buy tickets for the lottery.