Poems from Blue Positive:
Blue Positive — Ingredients — If You Want a Girl to Grow up Gentle, Lace Her Tight
My Words — My Man with his Fly Reel Eyes — Getting Kicked by a Fetus
My Son Asks 'What's a Torrent?' — The Forbidden Fruit
Poems from What the Truth Tastes Like:
Sweet Red Peppers, Sun-Drieds, the Hearts of Artichokes — Shrimp Arithmetic
At the Shorebird Festival: Grays Harbor County, Washington — The Sausage Parade
Blue Positive — Ingredients — If You Want a Girl to Grow up Gentle, Lace Her Tight
My Words — My Man with his Fly Reel Eyes — Getting Kicked by a Fetus
My Son Asks 'What's a Torrent?' — The Forbidden Fruit
Poems from What the Truth Tastes Like:
Sweet Red Peppers, Sun-Drieds, the Hearts of Artichokes — Shrimp Arithmetic
At the Shorebird Festival: Grays Harbor County, Washington — The Sausage Parade
My Words
I never liked pachyderm, especially when I learned elephants are anything
but thick-skinned. Ditto to the dowdily galumphing dromedary
with its root in dromad, Greek for swift.
Ones I never considered memorable or strange—
bubble, banana, anemone—bloomed
when my son began to use them
to describe falling snow, a crescent moon,
a cockatiel's plume. Plum is a terrible
word for a perfect fruit, summer
beautiful as the cold and empty beach we stroll nine months
of the year. I like gingivitis and gaggle. Gizzard, too—
it must be all that ga ga goo—must be,
if not primal, crib-al, must harken back to days
pre-list, pre-who-is-this-this-
in-the-mirror? Pre-must-do.
I wanted gourds and ghouls; I wanted gargantuan galas,
gherkins galore, but really what I wanted
was that somersaultingly sal ty
source, to return to a time when my skin
was transparent, when water
was my word.
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I never liked pachyderm, especially when I learned elephants are anything
but thick-skinned. Ditto to the dowdily galumphing dromedary
with its root in dromad, Greek for swift.
Ones I never considered memorable or strange—
bubble, banana, anemone—bloomed
when my son began to use them
to describe falling snow, a crescent moon,
a cockatiel's plume. Plum is a terrible
word for a perfect fruit, summer
beautiful as the cold and empty beach we stroll nine months
of the year. I like gingivitis and gaggle. Gizzard, too—
it must be all that ga ga goo—must be,
if not primal, crib-al, must harken back to days
pre-list, pre-who-is-this-this-
in-the-mirror? Pre-must-do.
I wanted gourds and ghouls; I wanted gargantuan galas,
gherkins galore, but really what I wanted
was that somersaultingly sal ty
source, to return to a time when my skin
was transparent, when water
was my word.
back to top
My Son Asks 'What's a Torrent?'
It's a womb, a swarm of worms, a swirling, untamed horn.
It's our bobbing, bubbling future, the dry leaf careening
beneath its branch as the first fat raindrops fall.
It's a gushing surging, riffling, swiftness; it's here,
where the river turns; there, where we heard the dipper
like water singing;
and now it's splashing, banging banks, swishing
past an overhanging willow like a girl with a comb
pulling and pulling her tangled hair.
Whole trees (it can happen; it happens) unleashing.
It's a swelling and bulging:the Skagit, the Sauk,
the Snoqualmie, the Stillaguamish. What the fishermen call
off color, an every-which-wayness all utterance (short
on restraint, hard to decipher), a violence purely, refreshingly
amoral, as in Now I'll go this way, not that way, cabins and coffins
loosening from comfortable clay. The mystery of mud stains
on three stor y houses. Bursting, confusing, it could be
carrying your books, your wallet, your living room sofa;
it's friction's slurry and spin, the whole big, dark tugging and gurgling
jostle and sway of everything liquid, our roiling,
rapid-riding brains.
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It's a womb, a swarm of worms, a swirling, untamed horn.
It's our bobbing, bubbling future, the dry leaf careening
beneath its branch as the first fat raindrops fall.
It's a gushing surging, riffling, swiftness; it's here,
where the river turns; there, where we heard the dipper
like water singing;
and now it's splashing, banging banks, swishing
past an overhanging willow like a girl with a comb
pulling and pulling her tangled hair.
Whole trees (it can happen; it happens) unleashing.
It's a swelling and bulging:the Skagit, the Sauk,
the Snoqualmie, the Stillaguamish. What the fishermen call
off color, an every-which-wayness all utterance (short
on restraint, hard to decipher), a violence purely, refreshingly
amoral, as in Now I'll go this way, not that way, cabins and coffins
loosening from comfortable clay. The mystery of mud stains
on three stor y houses. Bursting, confusing, it could be
carrying your books, your wallet, your living room sofa;
it's friction's slurry and spin, the whole big, dark tugging and gurgling
jostle and sway of everything liquid, our roiling,
rapid-riding brains.
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Blue Positive
To begin I need to tell you about Phoenix, who's telling me he's so hungry
he could eat twenty sumo wrestlers, diapers and all. I need to tell you
about these puke-yellow walls, about Ms. Potthoff, how she shines
in this cluttered, chalk-choked room like the Iowa sun in July, cares for these kids
like they care about their class pet Lizzy, a spotted gecko; I need you to see
Christabel's two inch navy blue fingernails, who wrote for even your father
was once a stranger; also smiling Myra, who tells us Celtic music's
like holding a cat, like taking her first bath, like her brother
and sister being born. I need to take off
this scratchy sweater, put on my old gray sweatshirt, fraying at the seams,
the zipper about to go. I need to tell you about the white boot
that used to be my sister's, then mine, then my little brother's
as he hopped home, one foot bare, one still-warm boot stuck
in the neighbor's drifting snow. Arnold says
it's like the colors of a Mexican sky,
a tarpon's glistening fin, while Jamar, Jamar says we should all have, like the dog
whose owner always gives him the last piece of poppy-seed cake,
a quiet place to lie down. Listening,
I hear the waves off the coast of St. Ives, where gannets, common as pasties, stretched
every inch of their seventy-two inch spans. Listening, I need to take you
to the Seep Lakes late, very late on the night of the Leonids,
my son with a cold, so in all the photos, where my best friend Lisa Sylvester
said an angel had shushed me, had shushed us all, that glistening,
which is why I must tell you of Dr. Lydia Adler's
gloved and sterile hands, how I slid out blue, but blue positive; my mother's blood
the rain; if we could see it but we can't, the sky, Ayla says, isn't crying;
the sky never cries. Our burdens are small,
or just the right size. I wore a red and black corduroy jumper, in a lavender dress,
sipped wine—a little of hers, a little of theirs, like those seeping lakes,
seeping into mine.
First published in Gargoyle #50.
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To begin I need to tell you about Phoenix, who's telling me he's so hungry
he could eat twenty sumo wrestlers, diapers and all. I need to tell you
about these puke-yellow walls, about Ms. Potthoff, how she shines
in this cluttered, chalk-choked room like the Iowa sun in July, cares for these kids
like they care about their class pet Lizzy, a spotted gecko; I need you to see
Christabel's two inch navy blue fingernails, who wrote for even your father
was once a stranger; also smiling Myra, who tells us Celtic music's
like holding a cat, like taking her first bath, like her brother
and sister being born. I need to take off
this scratchy sweater, put on my old gray sweatshirt, fraying at the seams,
the zipper about to go. I need to tell you about the white boot
that used to be my sister's, then mine, then my little brother's
as he hopped home, one foot bare, one still-warm boot stuck
in the neighbor's drifting snow. Arnold says
it's like the colors of a Mexican sky,
a tarpon's glistening fin, while Jamar, Jamar says we should all have, like the dog
whose owner always gives him the last piece of poppy-seed cake,
a quiet place to lie down. Listening,
I hear the waves off the coast of St. Ives, where gannets, common as pasties, stretched
every inch of their seventy-two inch spans. Listening, I need to take you
to the Seep Lakes late, very late on the night of the Leonids,
my son with a cold, so in all the photos, where my best friend Lisa Sylvester
said an angel had shushed me, had shushed us all, that glistening,
which is why I must tell you of Dr. Lydia Adler's
gloved and sterile hands, how I slid out blue, but blue positive; my mother's blood
the rain; if we could see it but we can't, the sky, Ayla says, isn't crying;
the sky never cries. Our burdens are small,
or just the right size. I wore a red and black corduroy jumper, in a lavender dress,
sipped wine—a little of hers, a little of theirs, like those seeping lakes,
seeping into mine.
First published in Gargoyle #50.
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Ingredients
In one ear the crunch of kapusta—in the other the sizzle of bacala.
Through one nostril the deep, dark sting of hot olive oil meeting garlic—
through the other the steam of cheddar cheese suffusing mashed potato peaks.
Some nights our burps told tales of halushki—egg and flour plopped
into swirling water, then fried with buttery cabbage unfurling
past Poland, past Austria-Hungary, all the way back to Mother Russia.
Some nights the basil in pasta siciliana sweetened our breath till dawn—
our sogni dori green fields skirting the Adriatic. Surely some of what they cooked
commingled—garlic-laden kielbasa, galumpki swimming in a thick tomato sauce—
but mostly what sautéed or steamed married only completely in their children,
the four of us who entered their kitchen—little rumbling Etnas, hollow
perogies longing to be filled—who raised our glasses—Salute!—
to the bulka and to provolone, to all things schmatzhnee and dolce, who left
each night, a few flecks of pepper, a sprig of parsley, still clinging to our teeth.
First published in the Bellingham Review, 2004.
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In one ear the crunch of kapusta—in the other the sizzle of bacala.
Through one nostril the deep, dark sting of hot olive oil meeting garlic—
through the other the steam of cheddar cheese suffusing mashed potato peaks.
Some nights our burps told tales of halushki—egg and flour plopped
into swirling water, then fried with buttery cabbage unfurling
past Poland, past Austria-Hungary, all the way back to Mother Russia.
Some nights the basil in pasta siciliana sweetened our breath till dawn—
our sogni dori green fields skirting the Adriatic. Surely some of what they cooked
commingled—garlic-laden kielbasa, galumpki swimming in a thick tomato sauce—
but mostly what sautéed or steamed married only completely in their children,
the four of us who entered their kitchen—little rumbling Etnas, hollow
perogies longing to be filled—who raised our glasses—Salute!—
to the bulka and to provolone, to all things schmatzhnee and dolce, who left
each night, a few flecks of pepper, a sprig of parsley, still clinging to our teeth.
First published in the Bellingham Review, 2004.
back to top
If You Want a Girl to Grow up Gentle, Lace Her Tight
Bound this way I am anything but boundless I'm so bound I'm bound to feel
and I'm feeling out of bounds but I'm a believer in being bound
for better things—wide wide highway-bound six or eight
or sixteen lanes a wide berth for a wide-bodied plane
tarmack runway blue landing lights marking
the boundary between gentle
and gruff between docile
and tough the calm
where the windy
stubble the wild
desert prickly
begins
they want
my waist thin
as a stalk of bamboo
the wind whispers through
want it narrow like the narrowest spot
in a wide riverbed diked getty-ed pier-ed
contained—end to spilling fingers reaching
plains they want it channeled dredged want the water
over there to stay there it is lacy this tightening it is the opposite the very
opposite of unraveling it is quite the opposite of 26-foot swells of cresting and lapping
First Published in Cranky
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Bound this way I am anything but boundless I'm so bound I'm bound to feel
and I'm feeling out of bounds but I'm a believer in being bound
for better things—wide wide highway-bound six or eight
or sixteen lanes a wide berth for a wide-bodied plane
tarmack runway blue landing lights marking
the boundary between gentle
and gruff between docile
and tough the calm
where the windy
stubble the wild
desert prickly
begins
they want
my waist thin
as a stalk of bamboo
the wind whispers through
want it narrow like the narrowest spot
in a wide riverbed diked getty-ed pier-ed
contained—end to spilling fingers reaching
plains they want it channeled dredged want the water
over there to stay there it is lacy this tightening it is the opposite the very
opposite of unraveling it is quite the opposite of 26-foot swells of cresting and lapping
First Published in Cranky
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My Man with his Fly Reel Eyes
After Andre Breton
My man with his fly reel eyes
Pale morning dun desire
My man's hip-wader heat
Gravel-in-the-shallows drive
My man with his Yakima Canyon shoulders
Sagebrush brow
My man's fingerling tongue
Biceps smooth as skipping stones
My man with his sockeye sperm
Trunk of ponderosa
My man's teeth the snow-fresh tracks
of cougar—cougar scream & cougar silence
My man's Frenchmen Coulee hands
My man the hawk with a snake in its mouth
My man the trout growing larger
My man skunked—his cattail want
My man the 40-mile-an-hour gust
a tarp set free from rocks
First published in Hanging Loose.
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After Andre Breton
My man with his fly reel eyes
Pale morning dun desire
My man's hip-wader heat
Gravel-in-the-shallows drive
My man with his Yakima Canyon shoulders
Sagebrush brow
My man's fingerling tongue
Biceps smooth as skipping stones
My man with his sockeye sperm
Trunk of ponderosa
My man's teeth the snow-fresh tracks
of cougar—cougar scream & cougar silence
My man's Frenchmen Coulee hands
My man the hawk with a snake in its mouth
My man the trout growing larger
My man skunked—his cattail want
My man the 40-mile-an-hour gust
a tarp set free from rocks
First published in Hanging Loose.
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Getting Kicked by a Fetus
Like right before you reach your floor, just
before the door of an elevator opens.
Like the almost imperceptible
springs you waded through
in Iroquois Lake.
Carbonation.
Twitch.
Sometimes high and jabby near the ribs;
sometimes low and fizzy like a pie
releasing steam, like beans
on the stovetop—slow
simmer,
like the shimmer of incoming tide—hot, soft sand
meeting waves, slosh bringing sand crabs
that wriggle invisibly in.
And sometimes a school of herring
pushing through surf,
or a single herring
caught from a pier like a sliver of moon rising in the west;
sometimes a tadpole stuck in a pond growing smaller
and smaller, a puddle of mud, squirmy like worms—
now your left, now your right. Sometimes
neon flickering, like that Texaco sign near Riddle, Oregon—
from a distance it read TACO, but up close
the faintest glow, an occasional E or X,
like an ember re-igniting.
Like seeing your heartbeat through the thinnest part
of your foot, sunken well between ankle and heel,
reminder of a world beneath your skin, world
of which your know little,
and the pond growing smaller and smaller, soon the rolling waves
like the ones you dove into at Bradley Beach, at Barneget,
growing less frequent, your giant ocean
drying up, your little swimmer
sinking, giving way
to the waves
of his birth.
First Published in Poetry Northwest
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Like right before you reach your floor, just
before the door of an elevator opens.
Like the almost imperceptible
springs you waded through
in Iroquois Lake.
Carbonation.
Twitch.
Sometimes high and jabby near the ribs;
sometimes low and fizzy like a pie
releasing steam, like beans
on the stovetop—slow
simmer,
like the shimmer of incoming tide—hot, soft sand
meeting waves, slosh bringing sand crabs
that wriggle invisibly in.
And sometimes a school of herring
pushing through surf,
or a single herring
caught from a pier like a sliver of moon rising in the west;
sometimes a tadpole stuck in a pond growing smaller
and smaller, a puddle of mud, squirmy like worms—
now your left, now your right. Sometimes
neon flickering, like that Texaco sign near Riddle, Oregon—
from a distance it read TACO, but up close
the faintest glow, an occasional E or X,
like an ember re-igniting.
Like seeing your heartbeat through the thinnest part
of your foot, sunken well between ankle and heel,
reminder of a world beneath your skin, world
of which your know little,
and the pond growing smaller and smaller, soon the rolling waves
like the ones you dove into at Bradley Beach, at Barneget,
growing less frequent, your giant ocean
drying up, your little swimmer
sinking, giving way
to the waves
of his birth.
First Published in Poetry Northwest
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The Forbidden Fruit
was probably an apricot
but is almost always depicted
as shiny and red, the tree
the barren woman's supposed
to roll around beneath,
wash her hands with its juice.
How like us to choose,
for our eye-opening snack,
the one that hybridizes
with any other Malus, so that
planting a seed from a small and sour
might well yield a large and sweet.
"A good year for apples,
a good year for twins,"
The Dictionary of Superstitions said,
though weren't we glad when it turned out
not to be true. At the turn of the century,
Tobias Miller brought to Gold Hill, Oregon,
the King, the Northern Spy, the Yellow Transparent,
the Gravenstein, and the Greening,
though we're not sure what we're gathering—
stripey reds we peel and core for sauce,
yellows blushing in the summer sun.
When they ate of it, it tasted good,
twice as good, as say, eternity,
which could not be folded into cake,
which could not be put up or pressed.
First appeared in Folio.
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was probably an apricot
but is almost always depicted
as shiny and red, the tree
the barren woman's supposed
to roll around beneath,
wash her hands with its juice.
How like us to choose,
for our eye-opening snack,
the one that hybridizes
with any other Malus, so that
planting a seed from a small and sour
might well yield a large and sweet.
"A good year for apples,
a good year for twins,"
The Dictionary of Superstitions said,
though weren't we glad when it turned out
not to be true. At the turn of the century,
Tobias Miller brought to Gold Hill, Oregon,
the King, the Northern Spy, the Yellow Transparent,
the Gravenstein, and the Greening,
though we're not sure what we're gathering—
stripey reds we peel and core for sauce,
yellows blushing in the summer sun.
When they ate of it, it tasted good,
twice as good, as say, eternity,
which could not be folded into cake,
which could not be put up or pressed.
First appeared in Folio.
back to top
Sweet Red Peppers, Sun-Drieds,
the Hearts of Artichokes
Pagliacci Pizza wants me.
Lying in bed on a Sunday morning,
I could almost want them back.
The trick, a deliverer said,
is learning to hesitate. Not in the car
or walking to the door, but just
inside, when they're waiting
for change.
Or I could manage a bingo hall,
swirl behind glass at the Lusty Lady.
Once it was a cornfield,
sixteen hours a day in a moving cage, reaching
for tassels. I've picked cherries, scooped
pickles, sold knives and rakes and
rolls that fell to the floor
while my bosses took up flying.
Maybe Pagliacci's wouldn't be bad.
Evenings. A car. The minor streets
of Queen Anne. And at the end
of my shift, I could settle in—eating
what got sent back.
First published in Potato Eyes.
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the Hearts of Artichokes
Pagliacci Pizza wants me.
Lying in bed on a Sunday morning,
I could almost want them back.
The trick, a deliverer said,
is learning to hesitate. Not in the car
or walking to the door, but just
inside, when they're waiting
for change.
Or I could manage a bingo hall,
swirl behind glass at the Lusty Lady.
Once it was a cornfield,
sixteen hours a day in a moving cage, reaching
for tassels. I've picked cherries, scooped
pickles, sold knives and rakes and
rolls that fell to the floor
while my bosses took up flying.
Maybe Pagliacci's wouldn't be bad.
Evenings. A car. The minor streets
of Queen Anne. And at the end
of my shift, I could settle in—eating
what got sent back.
First published in Potato Eyes.
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Shrimp Arithmetic
From the Restitution Desk, from the almost inhabitable pools
of piping heat, from ergonomically designed and tapering
treatments (13 by 7, 9 by 6), from toothpick tests
and take deep breaths, his adversarial posture nearly
escapes you. Here, take the numerator, the years
he contributed wages. Take what you can—
golf clubs, mail, egg shells. The megaphone pleading
meet your party—meet your party at the driving range.
While the crumpled leaf in the telephone wire
is a bird, its two legs holding,
the outstretched cormorant's only completely
himself. Did you dream of parrots,
then see one perched on a stranger's shoulder,
green as the swirl on a stagnant lake?
Search for a sign—Alterations—squint
the crucial c? The National Vessel Documentation Center
harbors in Falling Waters, and the judge awards
a portion—black bottom, marble, seven-layer.
As if you wanted cake.
First published in Verse.
back to top
From the Restitution Desk, from the almost inhabitable pools
of piping heat, from ergonomically designed and tapering
treatments (13 by 7, 9 by 6), from toothpick tests
and take deep breaths, his adversarial posture nearly
escapes you. Here, take the numerator, the years
he contributed wages. Take what you can—
golf clubs, mail, egg shells. The megaphone pleading
meet your party—meet your party at the driving range.
While the crumpled leaf in the telephone wire
is a bird, its two legs holding,
the outstretched cormorant's only completely
himself. Did you dream of parrots,
then see one perched on a stranger's shoulder,
green as the swirl on a stagnant lake?
Search for a sign—Alterations—squint
the crucial c? The National Vessel Documentation Center
harbors in Falling Waters, and the judge awards
a portion—black bottom, marble, seven-layer.
As if you wanted cake.
First published in Verse.
back to top
At the Shorebird Festival: Grays Harbor County, Washington
We’re learning their names: dunlin, black-bellied plover.
Sandpipers: western and least. Styles of probing:
run, stop, run; incessant sewing machine. What’s
diagnostic: upturned bill of the slender, elegant
avocet. Ruddy turnstone’s crimson feet.
Wired for wind and cold, bills conveniently tuck
beneath scapulars; feet retract to feathered bellies.
At the slightest hint of shadow, sudden movement
(ring-billed gull, drifting leaf . . . ), they take to the air
like giant swirling amoebas, locust dark till they turn
in a flash of white—beautiful, undulant whirl
lowering the odds of a raptor’s successful strike;
mournful tu tu tu of dowitcher, raucous cur-ret of the knot
translating unmistakably: watch out. Every movement,
ounce, sound, rigged for survival. But we’re not thinking
life or death, the why of insulation, skittishness. We’re focused
as always, on something else: American coot, osprey near bridge
to Aberdeen (mill stench, strip mall, though equaling loss, unworthy
of note), a nearby curmudgeon’s grumble (“the brochure said
thousands . . . “), what’s for lunch—mortality’s access,
like the nesting grounds of snowy plovers,
all but permanently blocked. Even when we turn
from mudflat to ocean, to a surfer stuck in a criss-cross
of breakers refusing to spit him out—bobbing, waving his arms—
to four Jeep Cherokees emblazoned “Ocean Shores Police”
barreling down the beach, to a man—wild-eyed, mustachioed—
heading out in a boat to save him, routine, we’re thinking.
And as he guns the motor, greets each surge—head high,
bulging chest—as he enters the whirling churn,
we’re unconcerned enough to admire
the sunlight pouring down in silvery rays,
magnificent concert of every-which-way waves.
Even when two massive swells converge to flip the boat
and he’s the one who’s waving I’m okay. Rising. Falling.
Disappearing. Surf a vortex . . . rushes . . . rips . . .
And just as we’re getting nervous (police, walkie-talkies, a growing,
gawking crowd), was he wearing a wet suit isn’t ten minutes all it takes . . .
out of nowhere a Coast Guard lifeboat nabs the surfer,
while a faint, growing louder, whir-and-heart-pounding-
clomp-clomp-clomp of a chopper lowers in
On the place where . . . but now I don’t see him is he
he’s under blinding swirl of water and blades
a man on a rope plunging into he can’t be did you see
his eyes did you see the squall, comes up with a body,
a body, limp as a . . . limp as a . . .
he’s okay, the wind knocked out that’s all hoists him up
like a half-mast on a windless day he sure looks
dead like a dead man have you ever seen someone living hang
like that like the suit’s empty . . . to shore where medics
he’ll be okay those who knew him cradling their own
incredulous faces, a round of shits pacing static no
response no one asking is he? Huddled. Stunned.
Light draining the sky. The last good God.
Goodnight. Even after the tide erases every footprint,
and where he lay a flock of whimbrels alights.
Appears in Birds in the Hand: Fiction and Poetry about Birds
back to top
We’re learning their names: dunlin, black-bellied plover.
Sandpipers: western and least. Styles of probing:
run, stop, run; incessant sewing machine. What’s
diagnostic: upturned bill of the slender, elegant
avocet. Ruddy turnstone’s crimson feet.
Wired for wind and cold, bills conveniently tuck
beneath scapulars; feet retract to feathered bellies.
At the slightest hint of shadow, sudden movement
(ring-billed gull, drifting leaf . . . ), they take to the air
like giant swirling amoebas, locust dark till they turn
in a flash of white—beautiful, undulant whirl
lowering the odds of a raptor’s successful strike;
mournful tu tu tu of dowitcher, raucous cur-ret of the knot
translating unmistakably: watch out. Every movement,
ounce, sound, rigged for survival. But we’re not thinking
life or death, the why of insulation, skittishness. We’re focused
as always, on something else: American coot, osprey near bridge
to Aberdeen (mill stench, strip mall, though equaling loss, unworthy
of note), a nearby curmudgeon’s grumble (“the brochure said
thousands . . . “), what’s for lunch—mortality’s access,
like the nesting grounds of snowy plovers,
all but permanently blocked. Even when we turn
from mudflat to ocean, to a surfer stuck in a criss-cross
of breakers refusing to spit him out—bobbing, waving his arms—
to four Jeep Cherokees emblazoned “Ocean Shores Police”
barreling down the beach, to a man—wild-eyed, mustachioed—
heading out in a boat to save him, routine, we’re thinking.
And as he guns the motor, greets each surge—head high,
bulging chest—as he enters the whirling churn,
we’re unconcerned enough to admire
the sunlight pouring down in silvery rays,
magnificent concert of every-which-way waves.
Even when two massive swells converge to flip the boat
and he’s the one who’s waving I’m okay. Rising. Falling.
Disappearing. Surf a vortex . . . rushes . . . rips . . .
And just as we’re getting nervous (police, walkie-talkies, a growing,
gawking crowd), was he wearing a wet suit isn’t ten minutes all it takes . . .
out of nowhere a Coast Guard lifeboat nabs the surfer,
while a faint, growing louder, whir-and-heart-pounding-
clomp-clomp-clomp of a chopper lowers in
On the place where . . . but now I don’t see him is he
he’s under blinding swirl of water and blades
a man on a rope plunging into he can’t be did you see
his eyes did you see the squall, comes up with a body,
a body, limp as a . . . limp as a . . .
he’s okay, the wind knocked out that’s all hoists him up
like a half-mast on a windless day he sure looks
dead like a dead man have you ever seen someone living hang
like that like the suit’s empty . . . to shore where medics
he’ll be okay those who knew him cradling their own
incredulous faces, a round of shits pacing static no
response no one asking is he? Huddled. Stunned.
Light draining the sky. The last good God.
Goodnight. Even after the tide erases every footprint,
and where he lay a flock of whimbrels alights.
Appears in Birds in the Hand: Fiction and Poetry about Birds
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The Sausage Parade
When the Roman Empire, like an overcooked
kielbasa, began to shrivel up, Christians made them
illegal. Peperone, Calabrese, Sanguinaccio:
from speakeasy kitchens, butter, lard and onion
hissed. Holsteiner, Genoa, Cervelats:
20 centuries later, the High-Production
Pickle Injector ensures a steady supply.
Presskopf, Figatelli, Jagdwurst:
could it be their names? That each must form
to its casing? Whose nose hasn't longed
for the scent of fennel and pork?
Who can say sausage isn't onomatopoeic?
"Cook them slowly," Dishes of the World
insists. "To keep from bursting, prick."
Robert was my first: red pepper, pimento
pinch. Chorizo de Lomo. Taught me
sizzle, avoidance of smokehouse shrink. Never
would I settle for less. Byron Speer — oatmeal, vinegar,
thyme — loved to go shirtless March to November.
Skin silken gravy, oven-baked. Chuck, a Drisheen —
running ox, tansy-tinged; two parts blood
to one part cream. Helmut, all-hands-in-the-pot
simmering shallots, 6'2," 220; sweetness
soaked (lawyer by day, Braunschweiger
by night); Dylan a Rotwurst, keeping sausage —
sage, chestnut purée, lemon, Muscadet —
would have kept and kept....
The man I love doesn't love my bread-crumb-soaked,
sputtering-pork-and-chipolata past —
salsiccie, budini, zamponi.
But the past is long as Italy's boot.
It is made of leeks, red wine,
crushed garlic, whole peppercorns.
There is plenty of room at the table.
First published in Poetry Northwest
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When the Roman Empire, like an overcooked
kielbasa, began to shrivel up, Christians made them
illegal. Peperone, Calabrese, Sanguinaccio:
from speakeasy kitchens, butter, lard and onion
hissed. Holsteiner, Genoa, Cervelats:
20 centuries later, the High-Production
Pickle Injector ensures a steady supply.
Presskopf, Figatelli, Jagdwurst:
could it be their names? That each must form
to its casing? Whose nose hasn't longed
for the scent of fennel and pork?
Who can say sausage isn't onomatopoeic?
"Cook them slowly," Dishes of the World
insists. "To keep from bursting, prick."
Robert was my first: red pepper, pimento
pinch. Chorizo de Lomo. Taught me
sizzle, avoidance of smokehouse shrink. Never
would I settle for less. Byron Speer — oatmeal, vinegar,
thyme — loved to go shirtless March to November.
Skin silken gravy, oven-baked. Chuck, a Drisheen —
running ox, tansy-tinged; two parts blood
to one part cream. Helmut, all-hands-in-the-pot
simmering shallots, 6'2," 220; sweetness
soaked (lawyer by day, Braunschweiger
by night); Dylan a Rotwurst, keeping sausage —
sage, chestnut purée, lemon, Muscadet —
would have kept and kept....
The man I love doesn't love my bread-crumb-soaked,
sputtering-pork-and-chipolata past —
salsiccie, budini, zamponi.
But the past is long as Italy's boot.
It is made of leeks, red wine,
crushed garlic, whole peppercorns.
There is plenty of room at the table.
First published in Poetry Northwest
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