Poems by a tortured word wolf.

A Haunting (Woman, Body)

We find imagination be the only defense
against these leaves,
fast cluttering my desk
with pages I do not recognize—

My stomach is parched from having just peed into the muddled ground.

To the all inclusive
Package. To the car
And the driver.

Editor's Note: What follows is composed from features published in The New Yorker between September and December 2010. No alterations beyond rearrangement were made to the texts, excepting those that ensured gender, tense and number agreement.

Perhaps strange, perhaps vague…
How things can break and almost mend themselves,
A little strange.
How we succeed ourselves.
Pioneers barely dominate infinitely
As Parthenon becomes a Laurel and laurels become….

Bee Hive, which happens to be a fifteen minute walk away from here, is just as awesome, actually more awesome because it’s more frequent and reliable and lasts longer and is overall a better investment for the whole family and the screaming children in the backseat who have had ...

Mouth taking the form
around like the moistening apple core
which deforms peculiarly
in the way of these things,

“All gone Quinn.”
“Who sir?”
“Shy Anne.”
“You sure?”

Rooms Full of Pottery Make Me Want to Smash Things

Nervous,
(as I am in
china shops,) when you place
your hand on my back, saying, “I
am Here.”

“and the water felt like crystals” you are saying, buzzing in my ear where the phone is
wedged between shoulder and cheek and
I am barely listening,
lost in myself,

The case for Anne Carson’s Nox might begin with its box (that’s not binding): grey with white binding (that’s not binding) and a single silver sliver, in which stands a boy diver on grass maybe forty summers ago, wearing superhero goggles and flippers. The photo is just ...

making room

My father's father sold tombstones
door to door, with lines from
dime novels like _this is a just reward_.

When the girl sings, I see
the strings in her voice
the velvety tendrils,
winding and fluttering
the spaces between us
trembling with crimsons
shuddering with saffrons
blazing with the teal of Sunday
church bells

1.
Waiting are they? Let them wait. This is the last of the earth!
Codeine. . .bourbon, I am
Content.
It’s just that I
can’t sleep. Boats
are knocking,
boats against the past. I
worry. Don’t
let poor Nelly starve: I understand,
my worn tongue reeling,
why the ...

It’s not the perfect photo,
this latest of you and me.
The light is bad, grainy and too-dark, but
the pub was small
and mirrored
and just what I’d imagined
when I’d imagined England.

And a shriek was heard
And the flowers of blood
Began to drip blood
And all the flowers
Began to drip blood
And the enormous crowd
Came to collect the blood
And all things dripped blood
And the sun grew red and dark
And a little boy walked beneath it ...

I
The taste of your mouth and the color of your skin,
skin, mouth, my dearest fruit of these swift days,
tell it to me, were they always at your side
for years and for journeys and for moons and suns
and earth and weeping and rain and joy
or ...

Remember, my soul, the thing we saw
That soft summer morning:
At the turn in the path, upon a bed of scattered stones,
A carcass lying raw.

*Obsidian Butterfly: Itzpapálotl, goddess at times confused with Teteoinan, our mother, and Tonatzin. All of these female divinities have fused in the cult that since the sixteenth century has worshipped the Virgin of Guadalupe.

I’m going to paint the walls of this room over.
They’re old now and they clash with the décor.
But the days are short and there’s no light,
no tarps, no plastic covers
And I’m sure I’ll get drippings on the pale hardwood floor.