I have just thrust my fist through
a glass window: the lanky and lithe fallow-skinned
young stranger to whom I have just spoken
about the dying river stares at me, curious but unaware
of the millions of tiny glass shards that rain down
upon the grass at our feet. I breathe some of them
in: they unite to form a ball of jagged diamonds,
bloodied with guilt, sitting just above my larynx. And
I can barely swallow. So I detonate
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Category Archives: Poems
Rachel’s Lament (for Alex Spourdalakis)
I lend you my children. They come to you
in many forms: some with butterfly wings,
diaphanous windows of color through which
light can pass, raining rainbows behind them
on every surface over which they fly. Those wings
are hidden under a thick, fleshy hide: those caterpillars
grow wings by their own faith and sometimes, out of
your sight.
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Protected: Icarus
Aanteekwa Learns the Meaning of Her Name
The young Indian man makes his way past
the crowd of wigwams, the barbecue pit where
the women are cooking this evening’s meal, and
the old man leaning on one of the wigwams and
staring into vacant space. Helen turns and sees
the old man, drenched with sweat, his skin dotted with
red circles like tiny targets aching for practice, but
the young man beckons her again: Come, I want to show
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Through the Looking Glass
Helen falls asleep yet again in the large easy chair
in her living room. The Guidebook to Native Americans
of the River Valley lays in her lap, open to a sketch
of a young man, one of those who called themselves
the downstream people in older times and settled
near the great river long before white or black souls
rode its backbone up and down the land or even
drew breath near it. He is nearly bald, with only
a small black pennant of hair affixed to the back of his head
and a river of beads bisecting the bare brown hill of skin
near its apex. Rings of beads hang from his ears, his nose,
and the buckskin coat he wears. He faces west,
towards the great river; and once this chair, the book,
and her body melt into dream, she, too, faces
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The River Valley Book of the Dead
The Guidebook to Native Americans of
the River Valley appeared on her doorstep by
mistake; it was addressed to the late Mr. LaFleur,
the old man who used to live three doors down and
who researched Indian history when he wasn’t working
at the steel mill, or mowing his lawn, or fixing
the ancient chariot of steel and glittery blue paint that rested
inside of his garage. The local scuttlebutt insisted
The Poet and Her Changeling Go Swimming
She is a distracting creature, with her pellucid body
like glass that peels back its own skin to allow
the curious voyeur to set himself on fire inside
her sacred temple. She has no need for clothing, either
as the orb that floats ever before me and invites me to touch
or as the translucent nymph walking next to me. Little
spirits, delicate membranes of rainbow and shimmer,
slide across her skin; every once and then
as I turn to speak to her, I see one of these Divine promises
slide over her nose, an eyelid, or a cheek.
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