Poetry

Swifts do not guard their time; they do not linger. When they come 
back from Africa, we are happy. I was told to go back to Africa. The sea, 
that stupid slate wedge, sparks with such beauty. I feel lonely. A car goes past,

My dream daughter is chopping onions. 
She has been chopping for hours, slipping 
off the skin like tea-colored lingerie, slicing them 
thinly like the rings of some beloved planet.

I cannot remember the last meal I shared with my father.
Only those long last nights slipping him what ice chips
he could still stomach and then swabbing his chapped lips
with a wetted pink sponge.

Confusion is the foreigner’s advantage. Natives 
tamp the nuance in their sounds. Stranger 
seeking refuge pockets vowels, picks gesture,
learns body, gets caught up on the cobble 

Imagine you could learn 
the names of every river,
each upthrust mountain
and fault folded on itself:

There must’ve been some incident, something to push both Dickinson and Proust into isolation, the horse thought as a student, but now he thinks time and immortality require one’s full attention. 

go to the library to learn how to administer NARCAN
to stop their mother or father’s heart from overdosing. 

I would be Diogenes. Swing my lamp
through these dishonest days in search.
I myself have looked the known world
over and given everything a new name.

Your heart is like an island, like a bomb chambered for containment and you should handle my heart like a rare species of flower that grows only here, like a thing that can destroy.