Always Tender in the Wrong Places
Two bears and an owl walk into a bar—
the beginning of a joke, maybe,
or a dream.
Prompt Poems
Diet Coke
All I saw my mother drink
for years. In the diner, served
with a striped straw and shredded
paper beanie or sometimes
at Stop & Shop just before checkout,
its perfect plastic body pulled from
the squat fridge that sits underneath
the conveyor belt—but most often
sipped from a silver can on the porch.
Fall
“If you don’t believe in something, you’ll fall for anything.”
—Falsely attributed to Alexander Hamilton
He Said Waltz with Me
till the soft cloth
hammers shatter
and no longer reach
the strings
till the metal pedals
wear down to nubs
unable to dampen
the music rings
Bestiary
All my life I’ve wanted to knit an aardvark
not this endless succession of zebras—
black and white wool seems sterile
and the stripes never come out lifelike.
In My Heart
Here’s the secret: nobody knows
what the moon is made of. Nobody
understands our bodies’ common cheese …