Poems for Persons of Interest

  Self-Portrait as Triolet for Tree There is a name which will bind me forever. At its behest, I exist. In its shadow, I bide my time. I plait my hair forever there. Is a name which will bind me for ever his? Am I the echo of a fall into forever? Word me what our bodies knew. Willow. Shadow. There is a name which will bind me forever At its behest. I exist in its shadow. 

Kierkegaard to His Shadow Near a Stream My head is a hyphen positioned between these two words. She conjures me. Erotically, she is at fault. An eternity between My head is a hyphen. Positioned between rings to bind a thing indissolubly, between pious rememberings that terrorize me — my head is a hyphen, positioned. Between these two words: she conjures me.

  Memory Her songbirds gossip lost nouns   and I wonder what she must have thought as the words began to blend into sounds   protein and coconut oil at every meal my mother flutters on the edge of her seat   carnation-sized bruises bloom on the back of her hands his name bitten into the ribs of her tongue.

“Questions are Powerful Weapons” for Stellaluna Rodriguez Your poem made me laugh—I think—I mean— is that a crime?—it might be—after all, to be as—serious—or should we call it “real”—as life deserves—is rarely seen, And yet—your poem got there—moving between ideas—as a halfback—moves the ball— across—a broken field—as tacklers fall behind—and meaning moves—and comes to mean   more, in the open sky above the page than words denote—condensing—like a cloud— looking down—eyelessly—upon the crowd— while someone—struts and frets—across the stage— the singer’s words—like ours—rain down in sheets— turn mud—then feed—the secret, hidden seeds.

  The Waiting Momentarily she steps away from her vigil and suddenly, a stillness. He has receded even from dreams. His memory is an abyss she skirts like the frayed edge of a rug an excess of love has ruined. The loom by day dances its song; by night, like the mind, unravels. Over the vastitude of the hall gazes flit as each holds the other captive. As the garden unburdens itself, so does the mind. The bruising tapestry attests the languor of the house. Masters of impatience, the goats cannibalize each other. We construct our prisons by hand, weaving memory into memory. How much of a man is made from the measure of what he’s left behind?   II The stranger entered like a breeze through stiffened linen. Futilely we seek our dead in the faces of strangers, the bereft heart drifting, instinctive and sightless, into the most familiar harbor. When he knelt in front of her longing, its ripeness burst open like a severed thigh. You do not recognize blindness until its consummation, j...