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Urleid

I. All that forever is scattered from a man. Home no more at twilight to set his sandals Side by side on the hearth and hug his children. Forever changes everything: He is folded into another being, a tree perhaps. The atoms that were his mind far-sprinkled In space, his life a banquet of snow…

Epistle for the Cicadas

Did I not, from larva, grow a shell, then crawl from it, skinless, until like the cicada I left my theologies and causes clasped to trees — so why have my maps and chronicles brought me again to a green lathe? Do I still wear the same threaded syntax? My eyes still turn from blue…

A Stillness

From here you can see the herds come down from the mountain Like loose rock they pile up at the river Then break loose The first one Then the others Whole herds plunge through the water You can see the men gathered in the pass with their spears to watch Already they are waiting thousands…

Island

From her place at the window she watched him, hatless, coatless, lead the mule to the wagon beneath an evenly gray sky. An empty pipe clamped between his teeth, he hitched the mule, and after she came out of the house, having kissed the children goodbye, he helped her up onto the wagon. She took…

Bathing Boys

1 We blew bubbles in the bathtub, bright glistening spheres rising to the exhaust. We played with his boats, a three-legged horse, a sea-serpent wash rag. Then I cleaned his secret parts. I have known no intimacy like having a son. A daughter would do, too, but a boy like me is a timely      mirror;…