How to Tell a Right-Trunked Elephant from a Lefty
check for the side with ruffled whiskers
and wrinkles, elephants tend to tilt
their trunks to scoop fruit so one half’s
always a bit shabbier than the other.
Poets Respond
When My Student Who Wants to Be a Writer Says They Do Not Read
Why would you build a house with no nails?
Why plant, till, harvest a crop
in whose taste you find no savor?
The bees of the field scan the dances of their sisters
before penning a path to the lavender patch—
When the Hundred-Year Flood Hits Home
There is a gapping
in the chest when the water
outside pours indoors.
A continental
shift shuts down the panic that
will only drown me.
[his smile]
I was born during the Cold War. I remember talking about nuclear war with my mom when I was a tiny child. I lived through Desert Storm, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Endless unrest in the Middle East. Escalation with China. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m tired of it. What reasonable, normal person wants war? It’s the worst thing we humans do. Now, we have this latest, indelible image of my governor signing munitions—killing machines to keep the war raging. Will we ever have peace?
Ode to the New York Lanternfly
I can’t stop admiring the dead.
They cover my every direction
leaving behind the spectacular
carnage of their significant
and insignificant lives.
Trump Says My College Town Has Immigrants Who Are Eating Their Pets
We used to dance at the Regency Room in downtown Springfield on some
Thursday nights on Fountain Boulevard, all of us getting a ride
from whomever had a car and would take us there.