Poetry

1 War is not a bomb, But rather a splinter that rests in the chest of a mother Who is waiting for a sound, And nobody , Comes back. 2 War… Is esoteric tombs, That awake on wailing, And sleep In the lap of a fatherless missile. 3 War Is a girl who wears eyeliner …

He knows respiration, knows the differencebetween the air at sea level and in the mountains. He knows how to assess an airway, how to cajole a patient to keep coughing through pain, how to fit an oxygen mask so it seals,how to watch the ball rise and wriggle in the spirometer. He knows how a …

I’m covered in notes, paper scraps, jottings, so acute the letters appear about to leap off the paper’s edge. I can say things of use—I’m sometimes good for that—elsewhere is where I fall. Like a hotel across the world no longer required, three precise puffs and it drops. Touch the screen to make it implode …

No night— summer night, winter night, moon-smudged night, night clear, night clinging like wet clothes to the soil’s skin: goose-pimpled, dew-touched— no night is so dark that you cannot see the darkness and make out the shapes where ghosts congregate like coyote, panting from carrion to carrion, pulling apart what once lived cord by cord. …

Asked if he considers me attractive now J uses the wordconsequence. Think clinical think screeningfor intimate partner violence and coercion thinkyour current living situation. Think miles apart.Have been trying on old clothes seeing what fits.Cheeks thinning. Thought I’d be satisfied pleasedthought consequence. Sometimes I gain a poundor two purge the next day. Think Tarquin the …

Where I live, unseasonable snow in February, Our temperate rainforest, osprey and eagles. A friend brings a partner to a gathering, a parrot who does not contribute, though I learn males are vocal and aggressive. I wish for the sea near Baja, where gray whales scraped the dinghy. Here, sea lions porpoise upriver, fat powering …

In the season when the earth’s axis tilts awayfrom the sun, eating daylight shortly after it is born, I miss the tropical home that spat my body into the ravenous mouth of exile.I press my thighs into the $5 wool blanket I got off a clearance sale rack. Through my window, I catch stars twinkling …

That day, I stood by the window, a knit thrown over my shoulders—blood-wrungred wings. Listened to hail pound the roof of my two hearts while the white sun stayed put. There was a moment of betrayal that asked for a room to stay in, shuddering fins tucked beneath her waistcoat. I let what camecome knowingly. …

Not everything is named after a dragon, // except for dragon flies, // dragon fruit, // dragon eyes, // dragon glass, // dragon tails, // dragon ball z. // We munch on dragon eyes, // keeping the peels for thefuture. // Thinking of lychees and then feeling guilty // for comparing the dragons to the …

Divorce is plastered in red on the outside wall as an advertisement. As an enticement. Sort of like, come and get your divorce today! Usually, when I think about separation it is that of the oil and buttered peanuts or that of the father and child. Such rules made to be broken for the sake …