On December 6, 2019, the Western Mining and Railroad Museum in Helper, Utah hosted a release party for The Cunning Man. The novel, which has scenes in the city and in the old coal mines nearby…
To the Ones who
Awakened the Universe with a word
And set the Cosmos afire.
First, bless the burst of anger; its force will get you free.
Then, bless the tears that follow; they will provide new sight.
Bless your bare feet as you put them on the earth. Run.
that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there ª waits while ● gets her bearings. It always takes a little while, he says. ● lifts her spirit nose, trying and…
set the hour for their reunion.
She’s under the green
canopy in the closed coffin.
I found God huddled in my father’s insanity.
There beneath the layers
of confusion—as to why none of us saw the
spinning ball or the parade outside—
At fourteen, Daryl cut across an empty lot
behind a brick pharmacy
where he had picked up his mom’s pills
(linden trees in town bloomed in pale sweetness),
In the Big Ending,
My son used to say
When I read him the Genesis board book.
Which was perfect, I thought.
Because I did not fit a second time
in the womb of my mother,
I was born of my father instead.
Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2020): 73–103
Davis compares the two men, saying “Davis, like Smith, was raised in a poor household and received little formal education—Davis, in fact, would claim to have received only “little more than five months” of schooling.”