• BONE CHINA

    Mother loved her bone china.She went out of the way to insurethat her first husband bought a completeset for her, service for twelvenever mind she never had a tablethat could seat more than eightand then only then if you crowdedmismatched chairs together.She gave it to me after her secondmarriage finally dissolved, not onlybecause I was…


  • A TROIS

    Each night I crawl under the sheetscurled against the woman I loveand beside me slips your ghost.For sixty years you were no morethan a fleeting dream faceless, nameless,an infrequent visitor to my galleryof hopes, desires, and wishes.You never had a face, did Ihave one you could remember beforeI was plucked from you too soon, youlurking…


  • TURNING

    It has been six full turnsof the shēngxiào since the dayyou brought a baby dragoninto the world and as quicklyset it free, never looking back.It is again my year, and youhave been gone for two decadesbut I was born of waterand so it is perhaps naturalthat on special daysI continue to honoryour memory with my…


  • LISA, ONCE

    A phone call, a lawyer’s clerk:Can you tell me about Lisa Landesman?I pause for that is a name I havenot heard in forty years, savein a poem I once wrote,now long forgotten. She was my sister for twoor three weeks, adopted like I was,and then Mike, my then fatherdropped dead of a massiveheart attack and…


  • HELLO GOODBYE

    When I saw you this morningI knew instantly that I hadn’t seen youin more than twenty years,although it is quite possible wehave never met and todaywas the first time my eyesever gazed at your face . I suppose it is lucky thatyou did not recognize mealthough I don’t think I’ve changedall that much in twenty…