First, turn on the lights. Ghosts drift toward shadows. Use the sin of omission as if it was a life raft, and you can’t swim. I can swim, of course. As a child I swam in tanks, throwing rocks before getting into the water to scatter the snakes while my mother doled out advice like,…

From the colonial gravesites where I walked mourning and grazing with my dog,   to this father’s day, flag-day starred banners curling in the cemetery heat;   in the juniper bushes, three cloudy blue egg-gems huddle in a secret woven nest;   the sudden agreeable sight of comfortable hills folded into passages winding down to…

I was tuning up and knew today’s the day flat, unchanged note the steel string twanged sharp and snapped   I can’t remember when it was new when had I last made love to my nude guitar all 12 strings unwound from keys now draped to the floor – her 12 pegs rooted just below…

I don’t always awake with a smile on my lips, or sleep with mystery surrounding me. Sometimes I am day without morning and other times I am night without moonlight. It’s when I get up and see all gray that I am more myself, this soul lost in live shadows and nothing to comfort me,…

Something about seeing a preserved butterfly’s wings pinned back makes me think about mercy, about how   Nabokov drew each wing as delicately as some braid hair. I would like to unspool each lingering strand of air never touched by harsh animal chaos   and patches of dust never written on by wings. Some days…

A brief kiss by two lovers on the street, given hurriedly without thought.  Even the moonlight doesn’t make them linger. I say, if you’re going to kiss goodbye do it like you mean it, never hurry.     If my lover were here on this same street I would grab the hair on the back…

They’re no longer doodles on the inside of a Judy Blume book, or the symbol before I signed my name on notes (folded in my best friend’s palm).   I swear I left mine on a bus to Heathrow—back in ‘06, stuck between the blue seats, next to a 50 pence piece.   Or maybe…

For Lori   My parents’ antique store was a place of mystery, filled with ancient transients– though well-groomed– wearing their past glory and future dreams in their faded brocade and gleaming wood.   My sister and I romped over scuffed floors, and behind curio cabinets, explorers, curators of treasures— the chair that was really a…

  To the men who do not catcall me from alleyway caves as I walk home from my ten hour shift alone. To the men who tell me I work harder than anyone they’ve seen. Not “harder than any man,” not “for a woman, your work is pristine.” To the men who give me a…

The Winter  Memories of him Are always his truck With frost growing on the windows Like a living creature Waiting for your vehicles to warm up After jazz rehearsal. Any chance to spend time together Is time well spent. Breathing into your mittens Teeth chattering, toes numb An average Alberta winter night -40 at 9:30…