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Already dying, she would lead the way to a table Full in the window and watch out eagerly Over the hurry of life under the sun, drank this Till the coffees came, then woman to woman Asked after my life that would continue a while yet Beyond hers. The heart side, she asked, What of…

And in that same tempest the Austrian Ambassador Fearing he stood on the brink of drowning Flung his snuffbox, on whose lid was painted His mistress naked, into the sea. Unlikely He hoped this would persuade the god Poseidon To rebuke the wind and the wind would cease And there’d be a great calm. No,…

for Kang, born in Sonchon, North Korea   Better not to have been born than to survive everyone you loved. There’s no one left of those who lived here once, no one to accuse you, no one to forgive you— only beggar boys or black-market wives haggling over croakers and cuttlefish, hawking scrap-iron and copper-pipes…

Where did the dust come from and how much of it do you have? When and where did you first notice the dust? Why didn’t you act sooner? Why don’t you show me a sample. Why don’t you have a sample? Why don’t you take some responsibility? For yourself, the dust? Personally I’ve never suffered…

She thirsts for her lamb, minutes old, still-born and cooling in a cold dawn, licking him clean with a growl of love till you turn her away, steal the corpse and rip with the hiss of the blade in a single tear throat to tail. The stripped flesh is a breath of steam, delta of…

           for R. S. Thomas Never more than a shadow, a silvering wind crossing a field, two ears alert in a gap then gone—its empty form warm, like a room someone just left, its heart leaping the earth, the silent immensities. Once, on a cliff walk, we saw it, a clod…

A Fairytale Once upon a time a girl ran away to join the zoo. She was only herself in the company of animals. Their smell and their wordlessness drew her. Their silence was not a lack, but a better dimension. At the zoo was a tiger, untamed and deadly. She’d killed a keeper and only…

Drum-brush of fabric. The clink of a zip on laminate floor. You step from a skirt to the sound of our breathing. The street outside swells to a canticle of traffic. We’ve time to touch as if reunited— the harshness of the journey written into the depth of a clinch. Chest to chest, your head…

“Hey, Dude, try these” she whispered, the proffered palm, the pinpoint lights, dark stars. I did. Pines, a gravel strand. Frat boy canoodling with a coed. Some cool waif approached, said fog would afflict the Milwaukee reservoir, fed me the falsified warnings of high, incoming tides. One string of her turquoise bikini come untied. “Au…