Cooked, the socks, the pantry stocked,
Thanksgiving dinner for twenty.
Crab apples around the turkey on a platter I’d serve
Modeled from a photograph.
I was modeled on a photograph.
Clean floor, it was perfect.
One exact book on the table, dust it.
I slipped on spilled bath water and broke bones.
I spilled bleach on a shirt.
I wore a cast.
I looked into the dark: bad mother, bad lover.
Polished wood. …
The ruffled hem floats
as you spin.
Of them all,
the one you like
most.
The ruffled hem, as you
spin, opens
around your …
Freeways connect
The Golden State
I-5
Droughts
Prisons
3 strikes
You’re out
Life is no
Ball game
Displacing families
Generations
From
San Francisco to
Chavez Ravine
Giants throw children
In …
O sister on the other side
of the mirror, all sass and vinegar.
Galaxy of lace and petticoats
and pretty things swept under
the radar. You are a vintage
ditty, hiding …
How does the night move?
There must be a moment
when it moves over your body.
You are half night, half day then,
you are a sister to the moon,
1.
from here the earth
is a shade of the darkest
blue before black
i look out the window
and i know where we are
where the desert looks
like the ocean at …
The midwife kneeled beside me
and when she stroked my thigh
on the toilet seat I noticed the image
of a baby tree, wavering in the deep-
rust stain of the clawfoot …
1
I do not remember how old I was when my grandmother showed me Phillis Wheatley’s poetry. Ten, maybe 11? Young enough that my hands were open to everything she put …
C: I’m Claire, I’m an avid reader, aspiring writer, and I collect a lot of books filling the entire house so there are only narrow crevices to squeeze …
I am in a eucalyptus grove next to a playground. I am seven, or eight, my school is Catholic, and recess begins and ends with a bell that stings. You …
