Articles

Mortals are not designed to bask in joy,
though life be only borne by dreams of it.

An atom
is a fantastic
abacus,

In my dream, W.H. Auden and his husband
are talking about how much they enjoy playing house
in the ersatz suburb where I grew up.

Children practice first person
by choosing

between red and green,
dog and cat.

So when I say that being a woman has always been a problem for me within my Mennonite family, what I am also saying is that my body has always been a problem, because I want to own and control it fully, and that does not make for a good Mennonite woman.

Holy Tuesday, a bag of dried figs
left with our stroller

How deeply Brother terrified me, I realized as I walked back home.

We seemed to live on the edge of oblivion.

She wondered

if two sips of lite beer had ruined her
lip gloss.

But somehow I caught on, a matzoh crumb of hope,
a teaspoon of charoset sweet-and-spicy on my tongue.