Excerpts from "I'm in Conversation with the Sea" & "Dia de los Muertos"

I’m in Conversation with the Sea

“I hold loss in my mouth, 

taste salt in my saliva.

This you understand. But do you 

know pain barnacle sharp? Do you 

know how ovaries die like oysters? “

Dia de los Muertos

~Honoring our Fathers in Oaxaca, Mexico

Here saguaro cacti flower.

Fuchsia-winged dragonflies simmer 

in Dutchman’s pipe vine,

until the night air 

folds the magenta blossoms

like hands around a heart.”

“When night closes its painted lid,

ravens darken roofs like tar paper.

Dog howls kite through the dark.

A black witch moth brushes 

dusty omens across our bedroom wall.”

For the full poems, please buy december