At the Bronx ZooThe cobras unlock their jaws into safety pins // Pick Open the locks of their terrariums & escape. The penguins throw // Student loans at women with Prada purses. So upset the thought // Of happiness existing anywhere seems insulting. The albino rhinoceros pushes // Open the gates of his captivity. How…

Out here, there’s a bowing even the trees are doing.                 Winter’s icy hand at the back of all of us.Black bark, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness that feelsso mute it’s almost in another year. I am a hearth of spiders these days: a nest of trying. We point out the stars that make…

The birth isn’t about poetryIt is about screaming pain on a SundayHailing a cab and head racingTo the hospital, now so close to the new apartment I had a baby inside of meBut no one expected it to happen so fastOr then at least they said they didn’tMaybe they expected it to happen so fastAll…

Happy the man, whose wish and careA few paternal acres bound,Content to breathe his native air,In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,Whose flocks supply him with attire,Whose trees in summer yield him shade,In winter fire. Blest, who can unconcernedly findHours, days, and years slide soft away,In health of body, peace…

Darkness.I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.I look at it, and pass on.

When great trees fall,rocks on distant hills shudder,lions hunker downin tall grasses,and even elephantslumber after safety. When great trees fallin forests,small things recoil into silence,their senseseroded beyond fear. When great souls die,the air around us becomeslight, rare, sterile.We breathe, briefly.Our eyes, briefly,see witha hurtful clarity.Our memory, suddenly sharpened,examines,gnaws on kind wordsunsaid,promised walksnever taken. Great souls…