An Ode to My Former Teammates at IBM
Heya, so you know what I did? Took the day off
to think about what was actually happening,
was really going on behind the scenes, behind
the screens and the gaslighting. I mean, I got up
What I Did That Day Read More »
She told me obsequious wasn’t the right word,
wasn’t the way to describe that grainy beach in
loosely translated terms of something yielding
and servile, but here it still is after decades of
On Being Obsequious Read More »
My dearly beloveds, I’d like to tell you
and the magpie how very much you are
needed, how very lovely it is to hear you
You see (I seem to start that way a lot lately, don’t I?) what
it’s really about is the choices we make, even the littlest
ones we CAN make, where we really do have several options,
What It’s All About Read More »
He says he wants to see Solomon’s
tomb, the Ark of the Covenant, and
treasures that turn dragons a shade
of muted emerald. Furtively search
On Choosing a Tomb Read More »
The way he says identity politics—as if claiming any identity
is something moderately pornographic, a Congressional
tabloid where everything is dirtier than he is. Never mind
his own proud proclamation: White male. Lover of guns
Or perhaps you would prefer to hear
my hands shake, that I can no longer
feel my fingertips, that I shut them in
Despondence is
avocado toast.
National Poetry Month 2024 – Micropoems Read More »
They may not sweeten after being picked, but they do seem
to get softer, these aging players that were the talk of the baseball
town. For some reason, they suddenly can’t get past the strike zone:
Strike Out (Sonnet Number Something) Read More »
Ageism launched the year we were born—literally. That was the year they
dispatched us and a supercharged word into a no-so-straight-arrowed
world.
Somerville.
Renting a room
in a peeling Victorian,
too many women
sharing one bathroom.
Somerville, circa 1988 Read More »
What shall we celebrate today?
Should it be sugar-free candies
and exercise? That splendid sit-
down cross-trainer that politely asks
listless arms and legs and hands
and feet to do the work for once,
I owe me yet another one – another, I’m sorry I did that
to me, another, please forgive my insensitivity, my inability
to protect us from the unexpected week’s end, blasting
the same old lie, that we were never good enough to survive
To Me, an Apology Read More »
I
I was of two minds, now
Returned to one: You do not deserve
Anyone.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at My Past Employer Read More »
I was this many years old when I learned what an opus number
means, how chronological order is not always set by composers,
but by scholars, historians, and academics. And having looked
up the word, as I am wont to do, having taken the head-first swan
Opus Number Something – On Gratitude Read More »
Shall I tell you I am disabled?
That I no longer can fend for
myself? Or shall I tell you
I now write the poetry you
mocked me for because
it does not pay the bills?
Shall I Tell You? Read More »
Let’s set the record straight.
I do not claim to know what god
might be, nor do I entirely get gestalt.
The Gestalt of God (A Philosophical Draft) Read More »
I did not know what I would write this morning as the treeline
got etched in wisps of ivory blond—until I remembered
I did not get to properly grieve you. Not really, anyway. Sure,
I wrote you a poem. Sure, I teared up now and again, like I am
now when I think of everything you did and offered, but mostly,
selfishly, I miss your listening,
This One, Too, is for Traci Read More »
