Sample Writings
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Other Times We Might Have MetWe might have met when we were seventeen,
when we didn’t even know how it felt to touch a body unlike our own. We could’ve snuck from the floral sofa to your bedroom while the parents were snoring and spent the whole night exploring new landscapes. Or we could have met after college when bosses and mortgages were our treasured worries. We might have made a child then with your azurite eyes and the soft, wiry brown hair I still had in those years. Or we could have encountered each other right after our divorces when our kids were puzzling over algebraic expressions or practicing jazz trombone. We happened to meet now, though, when the children have scattered to their own homes, when more about me is wrinkled than my sheets, when our bodies still glow with a beauty that once blazed. But without having lived through love gone sour, would we have understood how rare our meeting is, like finding a beach stippled with scallop shells, all split, chipped, cracked, crushed, and then lifting one complete one out of the sand, and rinsing it in a clear sheet of water. |
In the Eyes of the Stars
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Does it all add up to zero
in the eyes of the distant stars-- our little kisses along the chin our towers all eventually leaning our mortal languages the newest metaphors still hot as ingots our bubbling planet cooling toward frost In the eyes of the stars our bodies are mere transparent jelly our loves just a story with chemical words The stars with their dark sunglasses gaze on the future demise of our species impassive as gangsters Or is it we who point to the stars and lap up their sparkle knowing they also dazzle and die from My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers |
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A Map of YouYou’ve become my map, my geography:
the Black Forest of your hair, your alpine lake eyes, fathom after fathom, your mouth red as turned Carolina earth, those shoulders like Dover’s chalk towers, your Sugarloaf breasts, by your peninsular arms-- Baja, Malaysian, and your fingertips when they touch me-- Polynesian archipelagoes. Serengeti the temperature of your flesh. Your Panama waist flares to Venezuelan thighs and between them the Amazon, the delta, rare species of the Galapagos, coral reefs with ultraviolet fish-- in just a few short months you’ve become the other planet I inhabit. And your legs taper like a continent headed south, one ending in Tierra del Fuego-- the Land of Fire-- and the other in the Cape of Good Hope. from The Number Before Infinity |
Credo
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I believe that gravity is a temporary condition
I believe that all forms of blue cheese are sacred—why else would they call it gorgonzola? I believe that dental assistants get so moralistic about flossing because their work brings them terribly close to God I believe there are such people as spiritual healers and they are overpaid I believe in a radical democratic equality where your cousin is entitled to listen to Neil Diamond I believe that anyone who contributes to the extinction of a species should spend ten years in the jungle surviving on gathered plants I believe that there are alternate realities where Paul Klee would be considered a photorealist I believe that all nations and ethnic groups have a right to self-determination in order to make their own disastrous mistakes I believe in a Universal Treaty of Human Population Reduction that every country will participate in proportionately—easy enough to negotiate, right? I believe that women were put on Earth to satisfy men and other women and that men were put on Earth to satisfy women and other men yes I believe That the universe does not necessarily have a purpose but if it does it might be hazelnut gelato I believe that five days a year people should be allowed to come into work late just because they stayed up till dawn I believe that paying for memberships in gyms and pools creates a mysterious barrier to exercise I believe that those who obey every rule should hike to the North Pole in stiletto heels I believe that love is the most perfect thing and therefore not practical for humans Wait I don’t believe the second part I believe that music is the most supreme speech and that speech is the most supreme music I believe all languages are spattered full of moonstones jaspers star rubies and jade I believe that poems should end before their readers start to think about their next meal And I believe in the power of beauty to redeem all things Especially broken snowmobiles highway entrance ramps and airport bathroom sinks that sense your \ hands praying for the water to flow from Irreverent Litanies |
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