More on: Poetry

‘Speak to us of poetry and politics,’ / he said to me from his seat in the audience / as I was on stage.

I lifted the calendar from / / its nail and thumbed through the other Marys: / a stylish Guadalupe radiating needles / for October, Michelangelo’s marble / draped in the corpse of Christ for March

Is it possible / that your experience / is a form of joy? / Or a word for joy, / in an unspeakable / tongue.

Katherine Mooney Brooks on art, illness, and the failures of the body

We played a word game on the mountain, / spelled cuneiform, spelled thoracic: / / the game’s strict rules / encourage motion / / up through thistles, saffron, / yellow stains

this is / not your tragedy this is / a scrap a slip a fragment/ a swatch of fabric cut / off the roll

Son’s / net-/ works / / veins under / the skin / of the dark / / call / see/ knock! / / a chandelier / glows / in the dark

Our bare hands redden as we work, / he high on the ladder cutting the old / connections, and I drilling / outlet hole through the siding.

And my flesh, my body, held

the kingdom of God, and if it’s a place that’s a place
for children, then most of what I know really doesn’t matter.

You carry our son in a locket
you hang around your neck

each morning, a way, I guess,
of carrying what isn’t and what is