I held it in my hand, gender unknown The blood sticky and warm Taking repose, inside the crease, of my lifeline, The rusty brown, half-circle path course circling Delicately, down and around my thumb I stared mutely at the pad, meant to absorb, Not cradle The miniature purple skull and curve of a limb, Barely [...]

It is midday and she reads on the bed. Her curves are clothed, she lies on her stomach: Copper strands strewn over a black blouse, a line of purple shirt hem under the first, next a gap between clothes layers— a strip of skin, a narrow expanse for kisses to stick to. Magenta lace pantywaist, [...]

The walls around me They hover Menacingly Coming closer From all sides Joining hands Together They weigh me down Constrict Restrict My every move. Now My remains Lying in a sepulcher Have learned to conform; But the spirit Crawls On the walls Looking for a leeway. Beyond the wall A leeway to go Beyond the [...]

Cut me up and put me back together as another body. Take the thumbs and poke out the eyes. Sew the heart into the pelvic cradle, staple the stomach. Break lights are contagious, and there are so many roads. My pace resembles litter-ridden potholes, backed up gutters. The crayfish rebuilds their shells over and over [...]

I tiptoe over clothes scattered across the floor. It is noon and the room is dark. The shutters are closed, holding in damp air, shutting out light that persists and falls in bars around your bed. Seeing you curled on sheets, your back towards me and pressed (almost clinging) to the wall, I worry you [...]

and everywhere is war… what can i save against the drowning of a nation i got nailed in, from the first crown of my fawn-soft hair against my mother’s other mouth, doctor’s tools slicing her open as my cloud-covered body slipped quietly out, into hands swollen many times from violence, what can i defend in [...]

Hello, there. You don’t know me, Although you know my name I think And can at times Connect it to a face. I’ve struggled to extend to you Regard you have not thought to grant to me But I have failed. I’ve tried to think of all of you as real To imagine that like [...]

Her house is empty now. Only the tailless tabby, Joy, prowls the staircase. She walks to the corner store, buys one red apple, then exchanges it for green. A gilded mirror frame catches her eye in the window at the antique store the owner flirts with her. She is content not to flirt back but [...]

Sitting here on this hill, I watch the ghosts of burning wood rise from behind the low mud walls of huts that cluster the foothills. In each of them, a woman, perhaps helped by her daughter is fanning a fire, rolling out rotis and blistering them on red flames. All the little children must be [...]