Category: Poetry

My sister died on a Saturday. A week after her birthday. A day before her family and I were coming to take her out to lunch at the deli for her favorite tongue sandwich and cherry cheesecake. The staff at the nursing home told...

It was a stucco house, rough texture, pointed roof, five houses up the road from the tidy suburban home where I grew up. My best friend, whose parents were theatre people, lived in that Hansel and Gretel House. All the...

There was an old house I loved, a house of many doors, where my late art bloomed in the hardy place that taught my heart to heal; to breathe deep again in the fresh cold air of pointed fir, woodsmoke and sea. The siren song of...

Humpty Grumpty built a bad wall Humpty Grumpty had a near fall All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Broke up the lives of people again The blue ties and red ties in the people’s own house Made as much noise as a little...

At sixty-five, an elephant knows           her end is near. The quadrant of sloping, wide           teeth at the back of her jaw has pushed forward.           Diamond-shaped molars break off, fall out. Once,           the...

Amidst scrub and thorn, pale gold tarantulas           rest, molt in silk-carpeted desert burrows. Four dainty pairs of legs moved up my adobe           porch prowling for crickets, paws padded like felt-coated piano pedals.    ...

1. Encoded on his genome is a cognitive bias for           pleasant memories. He remembers only what he wants to, minimizes,           erases the rest. He’s the only person who has heard my secret.           I counted on him to...

My dog’s breathing, Heavy, inflected; Its rhythms bend and suffuse the night’s wishes To contain the small hopes of The red rubber ball.   Wayne Bornholdt is a retired bookseller. He holds degrees in philosophy and...

Our sleeping dogs trespass our lives—      they are like hungry widows      insisting on their rightful portion      in a season of fleeting plentitude. Their sleep is a thick garment,      textures, deep and twitching. We will...

I ask you to take this scar, make it yours and set it on the mantle where urns and cats find their repose.