Poetry

I thought that when I saw my brother
walking through the gates of the prison,
he would look like a man entering his life. 

Announcing a new poetry project in the spirit of the Federal Writers’ Project.

Garlands of trinitarias shade an artist’s studio,
plainer than their synagogue halfway down the hill,
its ceiling painted with stars, a glass chandelier.

[…]

In search of pasture, a place to lie down in.
Back to the mother breast
or a dream of return

They say leap-year babies
are out-of-time, moony. I’m really
just two, closer to the womb

The notion that the carriage wheels clattering through Paris
remind him of the drums from the islands in his father’s tales:
clickclack sputterwhir—he could make a song of it, dance

All men are beggars, white or black;
some worship gold, some peddle brass.
My only house is on my back.

Can’t say he walked the walk.
Talked it, but everybody
did that, everybody