what that means

perhaps it’s time

to reinvent myself.

like putting on new siding.

to make it look better.

i don’t know what that means.

i just want to feel better.

i don’t know what that means.

i don’t know what that means –

i just want to feel better.

i don’t know what that means:

to make it look better.

like putting on new siding

to reinvent myself.

perhaps it’s time.

cartography

the parchment is always larger

than you’d expect.

not like vellum.

i write the world

and its edges.

like an icon.

except that it always changes.

it is good to remember that.

the root of carta means to scrape.

every day i rewrite the world.

i create shorelines

and make things up as i go.

i recite the names.

i establish boundaries

address the matter of scale.

wonder at what point

distance becomes exile.

every mark i make

is only to bring me home.

sometimes

sometimes people

use language

to hide language.

sometimes words

don’t tell the story.

sometimes you

can only tell a lie.

sometimes your wounds

are only your wounds.

sometimes you should

get tired of your excuses.

sometimes it takes

all of my strength.

sometimes all

i can do is hold

my hands open.

sometimes that

is the only way

to know the truth.

that time when theory

that time when theory was more interesting than poetry

an expectant hush settles over the room / the poets are about to read
 

/ the frisson of recognition / rejection as recognition / poetry and restraint theory / poetry as territory / stop explaining the poem / immersed in language / guided by engagement / breeding fragments / poetics meets critical writing / transgressive resurrections / the material word / intersectional entreaties / the failure of intent / how we choose what survives / what is different and still ordinary / people fit together in ways we would never expect / rejection of the subjective mode / the subject of experience / traversing the landscape of meaning / "i have feelings too" / let me take my place in the choir / discover new trajectories / the question of community / the vagaries of taste / sometimes it takes me hundreds of hours /

beauty still exists

spaces

this is a poem about

                                absence.

this is how the space between lines

                                                      creates space.

space makes the poem

                                   longer, and

(hopefully)

                  deeper.

i miss you.

do you miss me?

    i miss you.

this is how you learn absence

                                             by missing.

this is how you learn abstinence

                                                 with longing

the breath

                  measured,

sometimes caught

                            in the throat,

stretched out

                     on the page.