Pangaea in Her
It’s every writer’s favorite smell,
like Barnes and Noble
or hole in the wall used book stores—
paper and pages
wedged in between whiffs
of nostalgia, dust moths
and memories,
Audio
Dear First Draft of This Poem
I wrote you by hand but can barely read you now.
What beautiful cross-outs you offer
the world!
Whalesong
of course, as a poet, I’m supposed to think
words matter, am supposed to note
the irony in the Pentagon algorithmically removing
references to diversity from its websites
Safety Drill
The notice from my daughter’s school about the next safety drill arrives in my inbox the weekend before her first
To My Brother
Brother is such a close word,
a rabbit word, a ghost word,
a throat word, a word of blood
& root & cell & stem shot
through concrete, an agree word
Untitled
I write to make things right, or to make myself right with things. I do this by the right use of language. This is what first struck me when I read poetry in school and the urge was born or renewed to do what I saw poetry in the right hands did. To me, poetry is the rightest use of language, and it’s no coincidence that ‘right’ and ‘write’ are homophones.