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  • Bird Swerves

    Blackbird called Redwinged                                             and I both startle when I stand and turn. Bird expertly                       swerves, flies on; but I spend a few thousand mind…

  • June Bugs

    The buzz of electricity circles a yellow bulbin Maine’s humid heat. June bugs bombthe porch light with spiny legs—date-coloredand oversize.                              Spring peepers pin the night,pitch a universe in my mother’s kitchen, exceptI have not yet occurred to her. She is sixteen,and…

  • Provincetown

    This undistinguished        shingled        condominium is closer to Route Six than to the sea so that muffled sound we hear is cars, not waves. The occupants of the adjacent unit are often in the driveway keyboarding in cars. No one is keyboarding, of course, at dawn when I leave for the beach so I can beat…

  • Sweet Disposition

    Thoughts have gone wolf again, hunting for reasons in the dark.Suppose we were never               supposed to fallinto each other’s arms? Made a bone-boattossed all our memories in—              watched it sail. There’s a chance I know nothing and I will stickto you like…

  • The Invisible Book

    Sometimes when I’m reading, I’m distracted by the invisible book underneath the book I’m actually reading and the problem is this: it’s better. It’s like the superball under the couchthat your fingertips barely brush: the slightest contact and it’s gone, gliding easily away, because its form is nearly perfect, there, a sphere in the darkness…

  • In Minneapolis, My Father

    watched a crew wipe the family namefrom the face of our supper club. The new owners slappeda cartoon moose on the sign out front. If I tell him I love him,either he is holding my little hand while we step across an icy parking lottoward a greasy burger joint or he is on his deathbedand…

  • K Becomes K

    I recently went to an appointment with a terrorist I used to know. He lives near me in New York City, and when he wrote me a letter that said Dear Sashi, come and see me, without thinking very much about it, I did. Even when I was a little girl in Sri Lanka, before…