Through persimmon curtains, she slept away her infancy. / Waves specked the day-bed where she dreamt / her mother’s best…

School bus, may you never rust, always catching scraps of children’s laughter. Add a few phrases to the sunrise, and the pinks pop...

I know         you know how to sing           but who taught you This poem are from Joe Wenderoth’s fourth book of poems, If I Don’t Breathe How Do I Sleep , which is forthcoming …

I've been lucky—March is over / and my son is still alive. My daughter / is about to crawl. And the golden / sunset light recalls easy bygone feelings. / I feed my son while he sleeps / through a …

scientists in Hong-Kong have discovered a prehistoric fish / washed ashore in my bathtub among hair knots & soap suds / National Geographic is on its way / this creature with ten eyes & no fins / …

If you ask for a god, / I will give you a hum-drum sculpture, a cheap / vessel to fill / with what you think / is worthy: your angst / and cum, that one memory / of your mother / when she was still …

stands in a bubble in the backyard. The bubble is large, and so only looks / like an oily wall. His whole life / behind this one thin wall, and he presses his hand through. The wall feels like a …

After lunch, some poems. Wild ember, / isn't it pleasant to sprawl on this grass at my insistence, dropping the knife / for pushing the rice plugs into mud with, / eyes blue smears in …

In another time the choice / might have been depicted as two gates: Open the one, and it is winter. / Snow covers the cobbled pathways, the spires, / the December markets shrill / with lettuces. Snow …

I will never love you like I love Joe Strummer / she said and I said that’s / ok I won’t either / Our lips were there in the rearview mirror / and if you were in the backseat maybe it would have …

At this counter you can buy mints, M&Ms, slick magazines, and / a chance for the end of the / rainbow. It doesn't help to be / a sourpuss (I should know). / One automaton please in good operating …

Drunk again. You do the math. You wanted / happiness and I can't blame you for that. I wanted / to tell this story without having to confess / the water stains on the ceiling remind me / of shedding …

A distress / of ambulances / pass. / Snow like / diphtheria. / She called / love "lead / poisoning," / left by / the backdoor. / Like cake / in a casket, / she made mud / of my hospitality. / No one …

There will be a fire that blocks out the sun. For now, though, in the four—give it five— long seconds before, there's a dinner being eaten in the middle of the day. Good thing we're not robbers. …