I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if...

Our ValleyWe don’t see the ocean, not ever, but in July and Augustwhen the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchardwhen suddenly...

Let me begin again as a speckof dust caught in the night windssweeping out to sea. Let me beginthis time knowing the world issalt water and dark clouds, the worldis grinding and sighing all night,...

The MercyThe ship that took my mother to Ellis Islandeighty-three years ago was named “The Mercy.”She remembers trying to eat a bananawithout first peeling it and seeing her first orangein the hands of a young...

The Mercy

Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it’s the home of the extraordinary, the only home.

I find you in these tears, few, useless and here at last. Don’t come back.

How weightlesswords are when nothing will do.

Soughing” we call it, fromOld English, no less. How weightlesswords are when nothing will do.