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  • The Oar in the Sand

    He sailed to wherever the sirens were, surviving by lashing himself to the mast. An image of stalwart resistance, or weakness. And the singers mere angels. And heaven only desire, simply the illegal. Sailed into the not-quite world. Or returned home to slay the suitors who had been feasting there for years. What about afterwards?…

  • I Am Not Your Mother

    Before they had ever lived in the house, somebody’s useless cow had sickened and died in the shed next door. The shaggy rope that tethered her still lay in a corner, so when Sonia figured out that her older sister, Goldie, was having to do with a boy, she got up in the night, disentangled…

  • Inman Square Incantation

    Forgive us, we don’t exactly believe or disbelieve What the President tells us regarding the great issues Of peace, justice, and war—skeptical, but distracted By the swarm of things. The young Romanian poet in LA Said shyly: “In Romania, bums are only bums, but here In America the bum pushes a cart loaded with his…

  • Tom Moving On

    The women said, “You wished the rain on us and now you are    leaving.” They kept the rain and I left. The muck of that place stayed on my shoes for a mile and then it was a new road with a sour mud and red cliffs and a wind better than a sweetheart….

  • Intervention

    The intervention is not Marilyn’s idea, but it might as well be. She is the one who has talked too much. And she has agreed to go along with it, nodding and murmuring an all right into the receiver while Sid dozes in front of the evening news. They love watching the news. Things are…

  • Dark of the Moon

    My secret pleasure is the echo my indifference makes when you call on me—even in praise, even in distress. You refuse to believe your senses; so you ignore clear indications of thoughtful malice. Yet my example instructs: you strike out at one another ceaselessly and with growing violence; doubt blossoms as spring comes on. My…

  • Misunderstanding

    translated by G. Wiersma let’s ignore what happened in the past in a place that could be anywhere a lamp flickers between sparks of light in darkness I am precisely etched happiness or suffering just at this moment are indistinguishable

  • Six Words

    yes no maybe sometimes always never Never? Yes. Always? No. Sometimes? Maybe— maybe never sometimes. Yes— no always: always maybe. No— never yes. Sometimes, sometimes (always) yes. Maybe never . . . No, no— sometimes. Never. Always? Maybe. Yes— yes no maybe sometimes always never.