Poetry

Three nudes crudely drawn. One crouching, 

back turned, right hand feeding the turtle 

of the painting’s title; another sitting, as if in a chair,

head bowed, eyes downcast; and a central 

When you hold
a slice 

of freshly cut
red melon 

to my lips,
I drink 

Sometimes I enter the small chambers of the God of Forgetting 
and take my place at his feet 
and kneel 
and bow my head.

From here I can see the children
running across the long field 

for no other reason
than
they are fast. 

Apples belong to the genus Malus. I stand with my hips pressing into the sink’s marble,
rinsing and twisting these sandy, gunmetal stems out of the fat fruit 

I found a black snake on the porch, its body so 
still I didn’t dare breathe. Lungs arrested, I might 
have left my body then. It was long, a rope I could 
Double Dutch, a tilde underneath every word I try 
to love differently.