I have never been tempted to change my name. But as comfortable with it as I am, I can easily imagine setting it aside — all of it, first, middle, and last — not to replace it, but to do without a name entirely. I can also imagine doing without mirrors. In their own way, mirrors are as dangerous and destructive as guns, and being addicted to one’s reflection might […]
somewhere in this scroll / lies / the truth / I know March 10, 2021 . Belated Birthday Haiku Old cat warm against a sunshine wall — Kerouac licks his aching paw. Poems, Slightly Used, March 14, 2010 . [ 1044 ]
Only upon waking does this body form. What need is there otherwise? March 9, 2021 . This Morning the Sky Is My Beloved This morning the sky is my beloved and she beseeches me to take the earth from her hands for just a little while the earth heavy but so small and the rain is how her wept love falls. Recently Banned Literature, March 9, 2017 . [ 1043 […]
The socks are of brown heirloom cotton, rising to the ankle, finished without dye, part kiss, part sigh. The shoes happened by, looking for a home. They wait in the closet by the door. Sometimes I hear them in the night, arguing with the whisk broom: Stop pacing. Stop waiting. Shh. Shh. When I open the door, they are mum. Each has a life, like the walls, the dark, the […]
Yesterday afternoon I saw a great brown hawk, perhaps three hundred feet from the ground, standing on air, facing a cold spring wind, with its wings open wide. When he allowed it to take him, even eternity was surprised. Dark gray clouds. Rain. Clear blue sky. While I was out, I could not always see him, but I could hear his cries. A storm in the pine: two startled mourning […]
After her walk, I find a sprig of plum, drinking from a baby food jar. Poems, Slightly Used, March 30, 2009 . [ 1040 ]
now the snow is melting and love is dancing near the tiny maple of a crystal chandelier Recently Banned Literature, March 6, 2017 . [ 1039 ]
He had a perfect way of saying the desert had been crossed: Where water needs the flowers, we’re no longer lost. And there we laid him; and here grows the moss. “Where Water Needs the Flowers” Recently Banned Literature, April 11, 2014 . Copper In Your Palm Air so heavy with pollen and perfume, you wear it home. Comb it into the bathroom sink. Some settles on the lacy fern. […]
Opinion is dead, isn’t it? Isn’t it that cozy-numb part of you which has already decided, and chooses to see the world as you once thought it was, rather than as it is? Isn’t feeling entitled to your opinion like refusing to wear a hearing aid if you need one, or glasses if you need them? Isn’t it like a being a juror or judge who refuses to consider all […]
William Michaelian 