Sample Work

From Brightword (Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press 2019)

When my son’s ascending aorta doubles

I map the earth that rushes on, 

ask the cardiologist to calculate the curve

and value of everything chest-ward, bright-ward

beyond the pitching seeds of lilies

and lilacs as they make calm

and flesh the same green force –

the boy in symmetry and balance and dirt

his minuscule frame dense as honey

under the influence of gravity 

From Custody of the Eyes (Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press, 2017)

Occhiolism

With our lips, with a clearer custody of
our eyes, I say we end the long sentence
here with the daffodil on the stone
joints of newborns. The blue details
of perfection are but plain camp robbers
come forth for mixed seed. Both in fable
and fact there is a rock in every landscape.
This is a common, common field.
I am only the sackcloth of a mother.