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In the Gloom, the Gold

From the October 2018 Print Edition

If our days were honeycombed with cells,waxy partitions, then the gold could oozeand spill its gleam and sweetnessas easily as light traverses space.Are honeycombs so porous, though? Can lightpass through a solid wall? I tried to cleara passage so that radiance could seep throughand flood the dark . . . . Continue Reading »

Cold Prose

From the June/July 2018 Print Edition

For this last half year I have been troubled by the disease (as I may call it) of translation; the cold prose fits of it . . . are always the most tedious with me . . .—John Dryden, “On Translation” Cold prose fits, wrote Dryden. Yes, but wheredoes it fit? Oasis in the desert:hot . . . . Continue Reading »

Vowels into Colors

From the April 2018 Print Edition

A mauve, E grey, I dark, U green, O . . . range.I do not see you, vowels, in color, soany paraphrase is clumsy, strange.But you bleed into one another.  Youadapt and melt.  I feel the textures change.Duffle coat, army blanket, green to brown:color’s a garment taken off, put on.A coded . . . . Continue Reading »

Home Improvements

From the April 2016 Print Edition

M ellow and glowing with autumnal redA nd also ochre striped with golden light,R epainted bedroom with a brand new bedL eft made up, crisp sheets awaiting night;O ld layers overlaid with something fresh,N ew, and sorting out, giving away,C lear for a different union of fleshA nd spirit, window to . . . . Continue Reading »

New City

From the March 2016 Print Edition

Winter strains toward spring.A bird is singing in a leafless tree.The river gleams, the sidewalks glint with iceor with a hint of possibility.A blade of sun bisects the afternoonstreet. In such a slippery spot I fell,righted myself, stood up,and found myself no longer in the winterbut in a city and . . . . Continue Reading »

Balancing

From the January 2015 Print Edition

To land in a story whose end I do not know— as if we ever saw to any end: I try to keep my balance, high and low. The sliver of this moon, discreet and new— Waxing? Waning? I forget. They blend in a sky whose limits we don’t know. . . . . Continue Reading »

Slow Green

From the Aug/Sept 2014 Print Edition

The elements were stark: a winter wall,snow, ice, snapped wrist. Through the breakI could just glimpse the color of the bone.But cold and white, the January crust,weren’t the whole story. Seasons turn,bones knit, a secret stirs beneath the snow. . . . . Continue Reading »