The Widow's Coat
Ahsahta Press, Boise State University, 1999
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Excerpts

I lift your fine ashes
Mixed with bone chips
To my forehead--
Then pour them
Into the open grave
Through a funnel of red foil paper.
--from "Apocrypha"

I Know Who You Are

Last night I dreamed that you weren't dead
We'd broken up
You were still sick, but well enough
To hold a job
I yelled at you on the phone: why the hell
Can't you come home once in a while
And read your daughter a good night story?

You are a 36-year-old ghost--
You will never be any older
In the photograph your head is shaved, zen priest
You wear a red T-shirt, you smile
You hold a doll's head
which you are repairing
You haven't looked this good in years.

You are my first husband.
You are my husband
You are a four-month-old dead person
Like a four-month-old fetus no one can feel you move
I might still abort or miscarry you,
Like a developing baby
With each month you become increasingly
Dead.

Now you are a reason--
The reason your sister will not get out of bed,
The reason your other sister has a migraine
The reason acquaintances embrace me
My friends enquire of each other: how is she?
The reason a man who is not you
Tells me on the phone: I love you passionately
You are the reson I won't listen
To Otis Redding
The reason N. has a flashback, A. hates her husband,
L. weeps, that my phone bill is $500.
I know who you were:
Near-sighted, hilarious,
Bad-tempered, a terrible driver,
The only person I'll ever know
Who read Shakespeare in a dull moment for pleasure
I know who you are: ash, bone,
A name, my tears,
Mail that arrives
That cannot be properly delivered
Nor properly returned.