Ours was a space, gray amoebic and moss-soft.

The last time we met, he read me a line about how life is good though not fair.

Today, on the broken-tiles of your sleeping house, we are both in the clouds again.

She loved the sound so much, she did all the gutting after that. I enjoyed the feeling of washing the dishes,

Not a day goes by without the auto horns, Or the political instability, Or chai,

it’s not like you’re the one that got away— i let you go,                      i let you go,                                            i let you go

I spend the forty-five minutes warming up, front-kicking & later getting my back straightened by sabumnim on the hard-wood, eyes

I’ve developed an obsession with unabridged, rambling, disordered lists:

He sits cross-legged in the slant- light that cleaves a plane in the cave floor, a line that recedes with the sun

Round and brown, he hops amid the spikey chaos of salmon berry, tail upright, body shaking with what one ornithologist called

“Not even skin that sparkles should be shown, You Lilith.  You lady of the night, dancing like no one can see you.  Who do you think you are?”

And we two are caught once again between the thing and its reflection.

Chinook, the Snow Eater, drools.                Electric lavender shimmers                down its scaley silver cheeks.

But. The greatest poem ever written,  also must be a war poem,

She was a fossil with no story to tell, no story of her own: yet contained in that dormant pulse were the stories of all...

Grateful for any help, I wept. My ex-sister-in-law. My friend. I had screamed Shame on you. My enemy holding my laundry.

I should say no more dancing on the outside since shuffling shame-faced off the stage classmates snickering But sister of spring’s first daffodils

My mother’s kitchen counters are forever scented by lemons she juiced

it’s because i have time now, in these stolen hours in which tree shadows stretch across the windows and outside, and the air is just starting to drape itself in cold and to exhale its fog into the golden streetlamp glow.

All vessels have names, even a container ship whose utilitarian appearance does not elicit poetry. Ever Given. Blood oranges, mahogany, lemons,

There used to be a snag. It was in the chest and like a ponytail caught