How to Make Amends
He was hungry, so he ate the couch, the one with the pull-out bed. Of course, when the wife came home, she was disgusted.
Best of Rattle
Monopoly
My son’s the sticky-fingered banker—
a vault of red licorice squeaks
in his mouth. He conducts business
from his wooden chair on his knees,
puffing on a fresh piece of licorice,
clutching his stack of $500 bills
as if the IRS is coming for his
fortune with a giant vacuum cleaner.
Waiting
Things don’t happen, they appear.
When I ask for a spoon,
they bring me a fork;
waiting has turned my spoon
into a fork.
Gravel
Little children love gravel, kneeling to play in gravel,
even gravel covering dry, meaningless dust.
Advice to a Writer Imagining Conception and Birth
Look for a tree stump in the woods. Compare it to love …
Audio, Best of Rattle, Poems, Tributes
Halfway Down the Block, Your Father
Stops. It’s just congestion, he says. I have congestion, not naming it— his lungs as gauzy as a party dress—