Slut
In the parking lot of Churchill’s Garden Center, my mother
turned to me and said, I found the pills. I asked What pills?
though I knew.
Poetry Prize
Augury
I’d been bleeding for a year when we unsexed the frog.
Cold and pungent from formaldehyde, it lay with limbs
splayed and pinned to the tray.
Basic Needs
Listen,
I could tell you about the hot cat shit
That lay in the hallway
Just outside of my mother’s bedroom
Palimpsest
We’re bicycling through the Tiergarten
on a summer morning in Berlin,
my wife and I, our son in his bike seat,
and it really is a lovely day …
Conduction
The man drives as closely to my car
as he can without making contact.
His truck window is down.
Baby Love
Gregory had a mole below his left eye
and sometimes kids in our 5th grade class
would tease him, saying he had chocolate
on his face.