Hospital 5


My brother's in isolation again; when we kiss the tattoo
under his eye grows another star. 3 milligrams: pink

and yellow rabbits in red gilded cups. Glittering ladders
emerge from the head of the woman behind the glass

nurses' station. My brother chews his thumbnail
till it bleeds, then pulls my ear and whispers. Glass cases

of pigs under their arms, the interns stalk the narrow
hallways, heavy grunts with each step. Chalk and paper

cuts enter my brother's soft palate. The one-handed
janitor finds razor blades and sky-blue strands of hair

blocking the guts of the sink. White noise heavy
on our eyelids. Tattooed pigs walk barefoot, sideways,

across the flooded bathroom floor. I woke up
with all my gold teeth gone, my brother tells me,
small dark rooms for my tongue.

Summer Horses

through the screen door
the crunch of gravel as pick-ups roll
into the gas station next door,
the hum of a lawn mower or electric
saw from some other street

the parakeet by the window murmurs
to himself in the mirror, plucking
at a wing, if he picks anymore
he'll have nothing left

the reek of his cage mixes
with the sour scent of our pillows,
your sparse hair sweat-damp,
you pretend to sleep

the horses in the poster above the bed
are turned away, looking up
the faded hill at a fly-specked house

My Western


my mother forgot the suitcase
with her boots, lost me
among her uncles' houses,
the farms spread out like
fingers, her calls faded
in the falling telephone wires

and the cows shat and shat
and shat in the cinderblock
milking shed, the rooms of
mechanized vats churning
the smell of baby vomit

our hands and Osh-Kosh
overalls sized exactly
the same, we learned how
to use a bullwhip on the new
calves, your older brother

showed me his Harley: we
crashed together in a mucky,
sweet-smelling ditch, the yelping
one-eyed shepherd always behind us

Got new work published in:




The Loch Raven Review and

The Holly Rose Review, where I am in the company of Ivy Alvarez and Dorianne Laux.

I also just got a poem accepted by Women's Studies Quarterly. Yay!