I write fiction and poetry, like cooking & love my dog, MFA, Fiction (Columbia '03), publisher at Zio Apollo Press (he/him/his)
Majestic—bejeweled:
Red gorgets shine like shields—black-tipped, dipped in gold.
Courting bluebirds stir the swarming insects into the sun’s rays.
A fluffy-feathered sparrow swoops down and pounces
on the ground, up with an earthworm. A lark swoops down
And pounces, up with an empty beak, then shrills upwards.
A boy, bubbling and toddling, grasps his daddy’s fingers,
Hears a bird’s song, spots the flicking wings
Among the leaves. They clap in bejeweled majesty.
The Pacific sunset refracted—
Long shadows and golden reds.
Her daughter made a sandcastle
And she felt a lump on her breast.
Home showering, cupping,
The sedated memory of
The extracted reason why
Her husband left her (alone).
Her little girl
Tied a handkerchief
On her head
Like her mother,
And played tickle-tickle with the knot of skin
At the end of the scar,
Above her mom’s heart.
Mid-day while knitting she recalled
Her surgeon’s name, put down her needles,
And kicked at shadows and the wind.
Her little girl twirled, thinking her mom was dancing.
Cosimo Giovine 