Avant-Garde
A man slouches before a uni-colored canvas
with the perplexity of a stumped technician
gaping at the unremittingly blank screen
of a television. He adjusts his stance,
a double antenna, in search for reception.
Awards
She Rings Like a Bell Through the Night
Yesterday my husband bought a Lincoln Town Car.
As we were driving to pick it up he said how it was once
the longest car in America. Sometimes I don’t have to imagine
what he’ll be like when he’s old.
Mountain Lake
The next day I wake up and my wife
Is coming into the hotel room
And the first thing she tells me is that she found
A secret garden, which are her actual words,
Where she sat and absorbed as much sunlight
As she could, and then the second thing
What Is at the Heart of it Is a Voracious Clinging to What Is Called Love
I always gripped that thrill, that fuchsia carbonation, swarm of blush-colored
butterflies colonizing the gut, and I believed it meant something beyond
a temporary flush of feeling; it’s what I knew of theatre, of God.
Dear Proofreader
You’re right. I meant “midst,” not “mist.”
I don’t know what I was stinking,
I mean thinking, soap speaks intimately
to my skin every day.