Published Poems with Links

While compiling my publications for my LinkedIn profile, I thought I'd like to have, together in one place, a list of all those that have appeared online. So here they are, in chronological order from oldest to most recent:


One Week
My Neighbor Put Summer Out with the Trash
Girdles & Corsets
Injury
Office Party
Paul Muldoon Reads "At Least They Weren’t Speaking French"
Spring Break Chez Demeter
Hair Receiver
A New-Fashioned Song
Free Verse
Blackout
The Body
Lee Upton's Interpretation of "The Body"
Cushion Sea Star (with recorded recitation)
In the Sunroom (with recorded recitation)
January in the Tropics (with recorded recitation)

Pi Poem

3.14

It’s like the genius who

pursues
the final decimal of π:

the more she calculates

and marks
down yet another numeral,

the further she becomes.

When all
she has to do is simply look

at any circle to

observe
the truth of what’s in front of her

Hydrangeas

I wrote this first one in the 90s. And this is the first time I've read it in a long time, but my sister reminded me of it today with talk of hydrangeas.

Seasoned

White and purple hydrangeas grew against
my grandmother’s house. We’d take the large leaves
and fashion them into wings, wanting to
fly off the pier, over the Bay, into
the ocean. The petals became snowflakes,
tossed from the swings onto summer bodies,
teasing the crabs. Each day was too real.
most were spent barely clothed and bare-footed
walking to the playground at the drive-in
snacking on the honeysuckle and wild
gooseberries along the way. Behind the
swings even the foot-threatening holly
tree was our ally, its shade cooling off
the silver slide for half of the day. Then
we would go fishing, spending hours in
search of worms often found under the bricks
that encircled the tigerlily bed.
we'd gaze into the rusty creek water
waiting for a hungry sun fish or perch
to appear. Later we would try to scrape
off the scales of our catch. Getting even
more scales on ourselves. Little shiny flakes
that we had to hose off. This would lead to
a water battle that would end only
when we heard Nana’s yell about drowning
the grass. We floated over each minute
until the sun left.

I wrote this one more recently. Gone are the innocent reveries of my youth!

Waterfront

Two hundred thousand miles below the moon,
the water splits over a rock and casts,
atop the blackwild sea towards the shore,
an afghan, white—the kind my mom crocheted,
composed more of the space between the yarn
than yarn itself. Its complex pattern snagged,
provided little warmth. I’d brush it off
like salt that sticks to me on morning swims.
 
But Nana’s blanket made from mismatched wool—
her leftovers from other work—with squares
knit so tight light can’t pass, I let enfold
me like the flattest, calmest lake. We sold
her empty house and pier when I was nine.
The pain that’s coming tugs like undertow.

Originally published in 32 Poems Spring 2012.

"Just as well I didn't win"

"As a sophomore, she came in second to Sylvia Plath in a poetry contest. She longed to beat Plath, her nemesis. Later, though, she would toss her head and say, 'Just as well I didn't win.'" --Tad Friend about his mother.


Fairy Tale Ending

Each time it floods, the propane tank becomes
dislodged, resulting in a maple smell
in my apartment—leaking gas. The first
time it occurred, I spent the night downstairs
in a spare flat. The second time, I wedged
the doors and windows open, less afraid
of bugs that might creep in. Then after that,
the screens only. I ached the whole next day.
Last night I woke up cold and closed them all.
Turned off the fan. To me, the head-inside-
the-oven-trick has always seemed absurd,
some self-inflicted gingerbread-house end.
Why be the witch? I woke this morning dis-
enchanted, like all sleeping princesses.

Five-Year Anniversary

Meeting Jeff

A group of Valenciennes-based teaching assistants had organized a group excursion to IKEA on Saturday afternoon. They ranged in age from twenty to thirty-three (me) and were predominantly from Europe—UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Austria, Italy—but there were a few Americans, Canadians and an Aussie. I had met most of them already at our training sessions in Lille, but not the sexy, young, obviously gay Ryan Gosling lookalike in a green hoodie sitting across from me on the train to IKEA. We hit it off, and within five minutes of being in the store, we were sharing a cart and planning his exodus from the house of the evil prof he was staying with. Clearly, he would stay at my place and sleep on my couch until he found a place. Luckily, he was a little guy, so he’d easily fit in my tiny apartment and could sleep comfortably on my mini sofa.

There was no standard protocol for how each school handled their teaching assistant’s lodging situation. Some stayed with students or the heads of the Anglais departments at their assigned school until they found a place, some were left completely to fend for themselves, others were given free housing on school grounds or in a nearby building. (Yes, rent-free! We all pretty much hated those assistants.)

Jeff told me horror stories about staying with Sophie, the head of the English department at his school which was located about a half hour train ride from Valenciennes in the more industrial town of Maubeuge. Instead of taking the 23-year-old under her wing, she basically expected him to sort out his shit and get out of her house as soon as possible. She was a less-than-gracious host—making gourmet meals for herself and her husband while serving Jeff leftovers at the same table, complaining about him on the phone within earshot by saying that she didn’t know she’d be stuck with some ungrateful American as part of her responsibilities as head of the English department. I wondered why she even let Jeff stay with her in the first place when she could’ve easily had him stay with the family of one of her students, but maybe the thought of having to do that much extra work had been overwhelming at the time, so she thought it would be easier for him to stay with her than having to organize a place for him. Or maybe, in fairness, she just got fed up with him surfing her internet to find other gay men in the region.

The evening after our IKEA afternoon, Sophie dropped off Jeff at my house and literally threw his last suitcase into the street, slammed shut the trunk and sped away. We laughed and lugged his suitcases up the narrow stairs to my place. And so began our companionship. Jeff’s French was superior to mine, but he wasn’t as brave as I was, so we complemented each other—I would talk to strangers in jumbled French; they would get confused; Jeff would swoop in to clear up the miscommunication. And then we’d try to figure out if the guy was gay or straight. Usually gay because we were usually at Paradis de la Bieres--the gay-friendly beer paradise (!!) near the train station.

A few days after he left his prof’s house, Jeff found a flat overlooking the train station and Paradis, so I had my apartment to myself. This was the first time I had ever lived alone. Without family. Without roommates. Without a husband. Without a boyfriend. My place.

I hung the aubergine light-blocking curtains I had purchased at IKEA. I decorated the strange gauze-over-chicken-wire walls with maps of the city, the region, the country, the continent—all the places I could reach by train. I found a wonky red ladder-back chair and a small side table outside a nearby apartment building on bulk trash day and added them to my décor. Postcards and photos from family and friends made a worthy collage above my marble fireplace mantel. I tore paper strips of red, yellow, orange, and blue from advertising flyers and brochures to make faux paper flames to go in my faux fireplace. I grocery shopped, on foot, for me only and made food that I wanted to eat, mostly salads consisting of mâche (lamb’s lettuce), beets, almonds, raisins or prunes, goat cheese on toast points, tomatoes, black pepper. I watched French TV like it was homework but took breaks to watch the occasional episode of Ally McBeal (from a DVD that came in a four-pack of toilet paper I had bought at the supermarché). I smoked cigarettes out my window and drank wine from teacups or Coca Light from spaghetti sauce jars. I listened to The Killers, Patty Griffin, Wilco, Andrew Bird, Fiona Apple, and Gillian Welch. I took baths every evening. At night, I turned up the heat as high as I wanted. I slept with my books and my computer in bed with me, so I could go to bed reading and wake up writing. I was in love with France.

What is up with all the hand injuries?

So, I've already posted this poem, but it seemed too apt with Cat's recent, similar injury and Richard's stitches from trying to cut some ham with his new carving knife before going to, um, a pig roast.

Break Out the Power Tools

Somewhere between the width of floating eye-
ball filaments and the width of fishing line.
That’s the size hole that I could drill into
my heart, if I could find a drill bit small
enough. My right hand could keep writing while
my left hand cleanly drilled a hole so thin
that when the spinning sliver was removed,
it’d heal like Wolverine or Jell-O cubes.

While making dinner for myself, I sliced
into the web of skin between my left
hand’s thumb and pointer. I rinsed and sealed it right
away and bound the digits for a week.
The cells rejoined, repaired themselves, and now
the scar has made that spot a little stronger.

Why my poems use rhyme and meter

Free Verse

Each time I try to write my head,
I end up writing feet instead.

--originally published by cellpoems.org 11/29/09