When the Phone Rings
while you’re visiting your father,
and I know it’s you because
it’s your ringtone, the notes in a tune
you chose, so it would be bright and
I would know it was you
Librarians
The Librarian and the Sullen Blank Paper
A blank sheet of paper falls out of a stack of printing paper.
Its lack of use at the moment stares at her.
She shuffles it back where it belongs. It begs for a poem.
Visiting My Mother’s Wars
My father has taken to dosing my mother with melatonin at night.
Or she would rise at 3 to watch TV and later, after dinner, not know him.
My mother stands pointing at all the flowers gone to the deer;
Alphabets Are Like Cows in Sunlight
Always standing. You won’t see the letters lie down.
Not when there are words to spell! And children to line up
for learning. Splinter. Alphabet upright.
Lucky Ones
I was 17 when my father said, You are like her,
and handed me a biography of Sylvia Plath.
Yes, she and I had both pulled poems
like deli tickets from between
our ribs, had both slouched at the counter
of suicide and ordered up our demises.
My Breath Is Recycled
I would have loved Eric Garner!
Is this wrong to say?
Taken the weight of him in—