Six Feet Under the Gulmohar

When you are old, Mr. Ousmane had come to believe, you dwell somewhere between the human and the natural world. Especially if you have crossed that fragile threshold of eighty, the human world begins to discard you, but the natural world isn’t yet ready to embrace...

Tape Deck

It was hot and that was about all it was. Peros drove. When he was tired of that, he drove some more. Then he pulled the truck to the side of the road and, taking the map from the console, looked out upon the brushy land stretched endlessly into the open yawn before...

Misplaced Karenina

I am perhaps in aweof your feathered-cap majesty,you hypocrite princess,our transplanted Kareninaof a Kremlin motorway.What good or what rot,in being a century short or tall,when I cannot put thumb and fingeron your oily roots …I see such strange woundsin your...

The letters between us

1.Did you hear the horse thunder and taste the dustin your cabin? The wild hooves kicked up a stormlast night. The hours passed as I reread your letter,licked the envelope flap you sealed, traced your name, and wondered if you were reading my poems.Nothing fills...

point nemo

I was told truth is the oakthat holds its leaves each winter. A promisedelayed. As it turns out, I forgetthe rules. I never can know them. This one is anothermask for doubt. This one is the coverfor an empty bed. This one is the sheet drawn back—the old clothes...