THE COMMONS
The Poetic Commons
A hearth, not a marketplace. Read what poets here have made public — and let the forms show you the craft at work.Proof Poem 1791675117866
A line to prove the Studio saves.And a second line.
Still Life, Late
The pears go soft in their blue bowl of dusk.The knife remembers afternoons of light.We are the still things learning how to rust, the quiet objects practicing for night.
Ghazal of the Open Window
All night the curtain practiced leaving through the open window.The moon paid its slow rent of silver through the open window.What is a house but a wager against the weatherand love, the draft we keep forgiving through the open window.
Instructions for Grief
Do not name it.Set a second plate.Let the bread go stale the way a field goes gold.Some mornings the light will ask after you; answer it.
Aubade for the Kitchen
Morning comes in through the kettle first.The cup you left is a small cold moon.I am learning the grammar of your absencehow it conjugates each ordinary hour.
Caesura
The line breaksand in the break, a breath.What we did not say kept the room warm.
Exemplar — a caesura
The line breaksand in the break, a breath.