My poems have never been “long” or wordy, and a length of blankness, for me, holds nearly the same value as a string of words. I think words come to life when you give them room to breathe. When I see a lot of space on the page, I know that I should read the poem slowly. Even poems made up of a single word can be read slowly, you know? Once you’ve read the poem, you have enough elbow room to work out your reactions to the poem and relate the poem to your own experience.
Morse Lake forms
where the Big
creek meets
the Little creek—
bits of boat,
bits of dock
mark the spot--
Gravid stems
erupt.
The hale
yellows pale once
they’re plucked.
And then:
The smallness of this
colloquial cannot
muffle the full morning orchestra--
amphibious greens
clotting the trickle
of thaw. The tinny
fin flip and eyeflake flash—
small schools that
give shimmer in the dull
sulk of wind.
Our pulses
gulp
in rhyme
upon release— our
bodies beyond
us
siphon,
harbor.
Midnight
integral--
each night
an event--
we find in
mismatched
Coke glasses
Svedka, chokeberry
wine—I clutch
your musk
your brine
to my
breast
& goad
-
Star bands
tack layers
to longer days—
black satin,
white linen—
either,
always
wide awake.