Category Archives: poetry
On not being Dutch
Taped to the sides of their metal desks lists on pink post-its written in sixth-grade-girl-bubble-hand names of golden-haired girls all starting with Vander Vanderzee, Vanderbaan, Vanderbeek, Vansomeren. The friend list I never made having hair and eyes the color … Continue reading
Temporary Attractions
In August they appear, shimmering in the highway haze. Metal caravans refracting the sun. They set up in plain view. In parking lots or the rented dirt of fair grounds. By nightfall, they’re up. Red lights running. The kind of … Continue reading
The Composition of Dust
On Saturdays she stays inside to wipe away the residue of the work-week covering every surface of the house like dust. She scrubs and scours every seam in between feeding machines cycles of dirty then clean. All the while she … Continue reading
Repentance
He carries out the nightly ritual ordained by his mother by embracing whoever’s there. He moves among us through the incense of nicotine like a little priest in a pair of hopeful spiderman pajamas. He tiptoes over the empty beer … Continue reading
The Taste of Paper
After seven years of silence —a soft mumble of an email. I miss you. More of a murmur in sleep than a conscious sentiment. But we were never friends. More like refugees huddled together trying to survive … Continue reading
In Exordium
*****This was a commission piece I wrote for the composer, Eric Whitacre, about the birth of his son. In Exordium I picture you as a deep sea diver, an ocean astronaut floating, still formless, in the darkness of the deep. … Continue reading
37 degrees
37 degrees is the temperature a normal body holds. She woke up cold beside him and already knew. He stared up blinkless–dust already forming on his pupils. She filled him again and again, punching in time to the tinny disconnect of the speakerphone counting … Continue reading
Heidi Stauff throughsinaisand
