Creative Writing
“All of Us,” a 74-line poem about becoming a couple after the first wife dies, won an Honorable Mention in the Oregon Poetry’s Association Spring 2015 contest. Watershed Review “Dating a Dutch Scientist” and “Gold in the Mouth” in its December 2014 issue. Several of these poems appear in Saturday Afternoons, published March 2009. My photograph, “Laundry, San Felipe,” shot in Mexico’s Yucatan, is on the book’s cover. The Harney County poems come from my spring stint as the 2009 Eastern Oregon Writer-in-Residence.
Adrian’s Edge
Adrian is getting shoulders.
He is scarcely brown
with several races mixed
into his exquisite skin.
I’m teaching his class simile
so they can get a leg up. Read More
Coyote Call
Persuade Raven Wing,
future legendary local,
to yodel the coyote call,
barks so deep in her throat
she might mourn a lost world.
Yet the yip-yip of the pups
trying to keep up,
confuse coyotes with a wicked wind
whipping its broad tail
across the desert prairie. Read More
Sunday Outing, Harney County
There is no reason to move fast,
not here, where the wind slaps
newcomers in the face,
insists we slow down
or miss the big prairie’s picture. Read More
Prayer for Returning, Harney County
The hay-gold light and the green sage will nourish me.
I will see an ibis, with a long neck, for my eyes only.
A crane will toss a stick and lure a faithful mate.
What bliss.
I will miss my son, my cat, and the rattle
of the Brooklyn train yard. Read More
Sweet and Sour
This winter I lost
my waist,
my nest egg,
my columns,
our 90-year-old maple
whose tired roots surrendered to relentless storms,
my patience with slumdog renters,
a gazillion arguments,
all of my geraniums,
gallons of tears. Read More