A little rasp in its throat whittled the exhaling air. The auk laid down at last / and stayed there, its breath / so quiet I didn’t know when / it gave way to a greater quiet.

I would like to tell you about my mother’s erratic heart, or share what I know of Las Patronas

so i keep renewing her favorite book / on our shared library card.

What are we as humans surrounded by — do we choose to surround ourselves with — and how do we situate ourselves within language?

A man I didn’t love / died today—a growth / in his colon’s fragile spiral.

They make border out of moving body / and announce that it is dying / and that Mexico owes the U.S. water / but not from our wet backs.

I am dirt, bruised by lake light. white rain, mauve / clouds, the sky’s breath leaking.

The frangipani’s last falling flower makes its way to a graveyard on the passing-by shroud?

Started telling my grandmother / I love her. Loudly, daily, over video calls with / my mother, my mother holding / the phone.

it’s 1906 / my great grandfather Sam lays tefillin / for the last time then leaves / them on the bedside table, / a loosening; the leather straps / left to dangle

This past November, I was a visitor in a house with many presences: a mouse in the ceiling, ladybug colonies in the doorframe, accumulations and whispers in the hollow of the wall.

If the bath is a womb, the shower is a river, a rain. Distance between droplets makes a better clean, not deep, but a clearing.

In December, Karen and her family left the murky skies of Philadelphia behind and touched down at LAX on a breathtakingly warm and sunny day.

First I wake the body / to unring a bell— / as the proctor rolls up I slam down right on the tit / of the sexy mermaid we sculpted / in the sand pit.

In our youth, glaciers winged free to the highway.