I have been wanting to write about bamboo. Instead I find myself thinking about box turtles. Yesterday I came upon one on the path, dull-colored, it's shell broken in one place, a scale fallen away and lost like a stray roof tile, a scuffed substrate beneath and I wondered how many more lay beneath that … Continue reading Box Turtles
I gave you my back as he gave me his: I wanted to be held without holding. I wanted to be touched without touching. I wanted to be kissed without kissing, to be bitten, to be clenched, and pressed. And you did. You bumped your head against me. Like a cat, you pointed out. And … Continue reading Spoon
Maybe I should have left you alone to disappear. Instead I wrapped you in poetry when I felt you slip from me; I wanted my words to tether you, like long stitches pulled through the membrane of your soul -- a word-thread I stretched between us and knotted in my skin all the places you … Continue reading Words
I'm starting something new under the rubric of the tiny event. It's an experiment in cartography - the mapping of associations and memories connected to different parts of my body. This is the beginning of the project. I should perhaps have started at the top and worked down. Instead I started at the root. [This … Continue reading Ass
October 17 1. I am sitting on the porch with mixed feelings. I am still angry at you after all these years of silence. Your little touch turned into your unjustified accusation right away. My sister said you and I would have to go to therapy together just to be friends. 2. I felt, feel, … Continue reading Needle – #27
August 29 2. When I told you I was pregnant, you told me to come back to get married. I had sent a letter. Your brother in law still has it. I guess I would keep such a thing too. So he and Suartini still remember how I described Julian, then a tight, nameless bundle … Continue reading Marriage (Incomplete) – #25
August 28 1. I felt an electric shock in my left palm at the base of my thumb. 2. I dropped the phone. There was a yellow jacket underneath, huddled, dying. I had poisoned it. It poisoned me back. 3. If I were (like) my father, or you, would I have died then, in my … Continue reading Sting – #24
August 19 1. The snake is almost liquid now, merging with the earth, sunken and rank. 2. It had pulled itself into an infinity loop, looped twice, tucked its head under one of the inner curves of its body, and stopped living. I touched it, wanting it to untwine and disappear. The snake's body was … Continue reading Convergence – #23
August 14 1. What is it that I was thinking just now? Was it something about my village and the house where I used to live when I lived there? I was just there again after so many years. Things had changed. I didn't want them to have changed. It all looked dusty to me, … Continue reading Terrains of the Body – #22
July 29 1. The wave drew back again, eroding the sand from under my feet, making a space for me to fall into, a barely noticeable fall. 2. I woke up and listened to the waves the full moon pulled toward me and I watched the horizon in the blue-dark and saw lines of shadows … Continue reading Water, Earth, Sky – #21
Tiny Events 