Deer in the Suburbs Stepping out the front door I see a fawn standing not ten feet away, its mother another space behind. We freeze, the deer and I. Startled, we regard one another suspended in a long moment. This is the fawn we found two days before, curled in a nest of grass and […]

God is Nervous Energy God is salt water, magnesium and calcium. At sea level she is the tide that causes bulges and depressions in the surface of oceans. God is an aquifer. Water soaks through her, as do units of water: hydrogen bonds and molecules packed like inmates. God is solid, liquid, and gas. Her […]

The Prey Dürer never saw a rhinoceros Based on an Indian’s verbal description He created wooden plates of body armor. An old aggressive black rhino attacks the old man who sees his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Like the artist, he has never viewed a rhino, and he repeats, “Put on the whole breastplate of […]

For a Glimpse of the Sea Scopello, Sicily, 2018 The dish garden named Scopello basks in the sun of everyday grace, surviving without guarantee that its accidental pact made of rocks and succulents and cacti, thorny and green, will claim our snowy climate as foresight— as if there were no other possibilities, imagining bliss in […]

Propensities Inebriated our inclinations veer towards each other. Tenderness of your palms softer than any poultice: what are we burking? We need the outness of others to quieten ourselves. A gum band has trussed us. We can pull it any which way. As the world would have us as its external face. Or, do we […]

Sneeze Twenty-five strangers shift uneasily in their chairs on the first day of class in this community college. I see by their faces and the list of names that they represent the world: Sadejah, Jevaughn, Sandra, Pavelon, Jack–– collected in this time and place by fate–– Mona, Shaneiqua, Katya, Nydia, Tatiana, Spencer. I too am […]

Into the Whipsaw In this world of heartless consumption waste of human life to the whipsaw; children shot dead while at recess never did so little mean so much then when two deer in a field saw you and you saw them nothing else mattered… as neither blinked. self-righteous take aim. the pious obey at […]

Hallowed Ground Traffic is heavy tonight, phantom commuters tramping unbent blades of frosted grass Between my back fence and the neighbor’s distant wall The motion sensor is flashing its lightship warning Imminent collision between seen and unseen Hard, suburban landfall and turbulent sea of eternity Determined, busy specters translucent heads down invisible briefcases clutched at […]

CRACKED VOICES i.m. Jay Ramsay Always a mystic and dreamer. Did you know that he had died? If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be bereft and in mourning, now is your chance to find out. First it was a missing toolbox, then Sister Wendy left us, with Collings fuming about […]

Writing and the Sacred and Why I Can’t Write This Essay I can’t write about writing and the sacred. It’ll take me two stories to tell you why.  Story one: I’ve nearly finished the manuscript for my first book. Only the epilogue remains, and lumps of it stare at me from my laptop, which sits […]