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Through the skein of years, I had nothing to fear from this place. How final and brief it would be to disappear from this place. The tangle of driftwood and Coke cans and kelp in the sand made me think of the muddle that drove us (my dear) from this place. An orchard, a vineyard,…

That dog never barked, not a whimper, so it was heaven living next door to Pickwick and his mistress, Elzbieta, the Polish novelist on Brattle Street, my first apartment, my first year out of grad school. Elzbieta escaped the Warsaw ghetto, then worked for the Resistance during the war. What had I accomplished at 24?…

for Kay Ryan We sharpen our lapidary eyes toward flaws, and see the easy cz disguise, the phrase too pleased to please. We loupe the soldering for telltale fracturing. We will not be fooled. But let us withdraw the ball-peen hammer from its velvet swaddling, let us address the listing prong, the innocuous ding: we…

Pain    cloisters            itself deep   in the body like     a ladybug         nestling into a   pinecone. She finds       a pinecone split               in two, its spine         revealed. It is as if she has discovered     her own         corpse. What force could split a pinecone     down the center? Improbable    bolt of lightning, bright finger   of pleasure? Perhaps it has lain there for years The ashes      have drifted She is lost      in the pine forest         of…

On the park bench You turn the page of a travelogue— Henry James is eating the last of a puffy croissant Near the border of Italy and France. A crumb has attached Itself to his beard—oh, the faux pas Of greeting Madame du Coudray, With his top hat coming off, His bow like a bending…

You are alone and walking down to Ryan’s house and staring hard at bags of rubbish thrown from cars on the old Dungannon road. Overnight a revival tent has moored in the field as a rule reserved for Fossett’s Circus, or the cars of spectators for the Cookstown 100, who picnic on the verge and…