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The Gardener

She is on her knees pulling weeds. Her soul is desirous, it longs for cucumbers and melons if they will grow. When the earth was without form, and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep, the soul was born, a piece of the void broken off . . . the winged Psyche, Desire,…

Grey Paris

The big gray box of Paris like an expensive giftpackage for an invalid stood round me tall as a queen’s effigy in blackened stone. Spring was being kept indoors; each salon a tiny court where winter flowers ruled; where fine lawn curtains kept the public out. Phrases from novels stood in shadows behind buildings —…

The Garden

I’ve left my purse at your place again, my glasses a month ago, last week the necessary book. It isn’t getting any better, the boys, their father. His hands shake like orchids at the sound of my words. The children are terrified. Both have begun to call me Dad. It’s been years I’ve tried to…

Venus And The Lutte Player

My nails, light, on these strings. On roadside wires, far off, shy kestrels Touch down. Clasped in their talons, All tidings hum like insects: the death Of someone dearly loved, the death of love, Aspirations of the young, the lies, the sighs Of businessmen and lovers. They ride Impulses, pounding, that go to drive iron…

The Depression Years

Suddenly the photographs that Arthur Rothstein took become alive as movies and I watch the Model A leave behind its dust and pull on up to that storefront weather-worn with its tin porch roof held up by posts I might still carve initials on. In the barber shop that’s Dad’s he’s caught the hair that’s…

Gaze

A month gone by, and days like clouds form above the sea. A man I met smiled at me from a chair, took my hand, talked to me simply. When I turn in the warm bed windowpanes, rain light, and the garden whiten under the moon. Memory colors me like a flush. I lie on…

Today I Read The Children

the Nigerian gods were cooks. They made the babies for the people, each baby carefully shaped, slant of the eyes tone of voice the way the legs would leap and climb sparse hills. Each time the gods cooked a batch of babies enemy gods blew up a storm whipping the treetops where the babies cradled…

A Valediction

     Since his sharp sight has taught you To think your own thoughts and to see What cramped horizons my arms brought you,      Turn then and go free,      Unlimited, your own Forever. Let your vision be In your own interests; you’ve outgrown      All need for tyranny.      May his clear views save you From those shrewd, undermining…