Words
Ode to coronavirus
As I lay here watching the world crumble from my phone screen,
I look outside my window.
The trees stand as per usual.This time covered in...
When we howl
When we howl, we howl as oneAgainst the breakersAgainst the silenceAgainst the bone
When we howl, we’re calling to you,“Ahwooooooooo!”Saying, I see you, I hear...
Black White and Blue Lives
Screams and shouts, full of hate
“To once again make America great”
“Don’t forget all lives matter” are the cries.
How can we believe that when every...
Colorado Goddamn
Dear Nina,
Two years in, milady, and all Boulder has taught me is that keeping up with the Joneses still keeps one oblivious to the...
Navajo Peak (a poem in two voices)
In the winter of 1948 a plane crashed in the Indian Peaks west of Boulder, Colorado. It took three days to recover the three...
Comedy on stage, tragedy off
Studying fairy tales taught Mona Awad that beauty is humanity’s kryptonite.
“I’m fascinated by the shadow side of the things that we worship and hold...
My life as a ditch
I am a ditch. I live in the ground. When the water flows
through me it washes along my sides with a familiar
tingling that I...
Pearl Street, 2020
This was supposed to be the year that I returned,to the breathtaking views of the Rockies,to the aroma of fresh-ground coffee,to the fragrances of...
‘Hope and the Odds Make Poor Bedfellows,’ JL
The celebration in Wuhan is a galaxy of lights.The temporary hospitals are torn down, the mallsare reopened. A man fixes his daughter’s maskby a...
Americans are returning to their rituals
pack your emergency go-bags, fireand flood are riding the waveof optimism don’t forget the iodine! Anne Waldmansays, we’re taking off our sweatersAndrew Schelling says—the poetsundressing, the climate...
An Ode to the Sounds of Blackness
When Ray Charles asked, “Come live with me and won’t you be my love?” Gladys said she’s leaving to be with him On a midnight train...
