Novels, short fiction, poetry. People’s Book Awards winner, Litro Fiction Award, Publication of the Year, Spillwords Press. Stories in five print anthologies.
- Tweets11.3K
- Following4.8K
- Followers4.8K
- Likes6.3K
ALT Release Because I come loaded, uniformless as light’s opponent in a hard war: dawn’s wet language no different from staring down Chekhov’s gun. against backwashed hills, her perfect aspect, long slant of rain my unearned mercy. we draw lines, snow disguising the smuggled, the smuggler, heaven-mined. Translated: “her full-proof spirit burns my throat.” Eastward, horses pacing damages of an unrecorded fall.
ALT Postscript Seamus Heaney And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans, Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. Useless to think you’ll park and capture it More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
ALT Unaccented God's first language is silence. His second, heat. He learned mercy next, though he still has trouble with the pronunciations. Then Aramaic, Igbo, Old High German. God is a completist, proud to understand every earthly prayer. But if you've studied languages, you know comprehension's the easy part. Much harder to say something back without using your mother tongue. —Maureen Thorson from Share the Wealth (Veliz Books, 2022)
