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seven short poems
Rez Kids in Wonderland
We ran and fell and rolled
in wild grass, and we waded
rivers, ponds, lakes, brooks,
and streams, and we climbed
canyon walls, brush, and trees
until our parents lost track
of which animals were wild
and which animal was their child.
Time My cousin said there was only one narrow window in his prison cell. He said, "When I was lonely, I'd pretend there was a powwow happening on the other side of the glass." He said the imaginary dancers would wave to him as they circled past the pane. He said those Indians would enter grand no matter the weather. My cousin said he never knew the ghosts who arrived to comfort him but he always recognized the eagle feathers.
Search Engine What if nobody is looking for you?
Evolution Those sparrows used to be dinosaurs. Our seven-pound lapdog used to be a wolf. We used to throw spears at mammoths. I'm not nostalgic but I understand that almost everything used to be stronger.
War Story When I was a child, our father owned a pair of brass knuckles with a knife attached— a weapon invented for trench combat during World War 1. Our father was never violent. He was shy and quiet. He kept that knuckle knife in a bedroom drawer and only used it as a theatrical prop when he drunkenly repeated stories about his Green Beret days. He was lying. Our father never served in combat but he was the only son of a father who was killed in action on Okinawa Island during World War 2. Our father was only six years old when his father was buried so he was always a fatherless kid who wanted to be a warrior who defeated his lifelong grief. But he never did.
How it Happened
In the absence of cups,
we shape our hands
into cups, dip them
into the river, fill them
with water, lever them
to our mouths, and drink.
Humans are toolmakers
and everything we are
has been constructed
by thirst.
Vision My love, look at this domestic scene, this bedtime spectacle— your eyeware and my eyeware, similar in design, are strewn across the sheets with their bare legs entwined.
I’m sitting in my office. Class just ended and I’m between students. I see your email and I’m always shaken a bit after I read your poetry. My scheduling person walked into my room to ask me a question and shifting back from the worlds you create is always a challenge. I appreciate your poetry so much. I don’t tend to like poetry, (can an English teacher say that?) but I would buy every single volume of yours.
Good work. I appreciate the way you break the lines, and when you read them aloud, I can hear the words in a different way.