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At first you will know her as yours only by a vague      contrariness That characterizes everyone else you love, among others      you and myself. You will see in her your marriage — that is there will be      more Of her mother than you thought you bargained for. You will find her set of mind, her…

And one other thing, Fear not she is frail This young girl though she’s slender You’ve seen the pitless bee Swoop hard in his flower — But no stem’s ever snap’t Take her firmly. No half-hesitant pressing’s Gotten all the sugarcane’s Sap. — Anonymous from the Subhàsitàvalì

     the soul, Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not (Wordsworth) When your post-War Plymouth rattled up to our eternal practice, and you vaulted the fence, we’d drift down from the wildness memory does not hold, still half sky from shagging day-long flies. Sweat-suited, someone’s father, you’d bawl “Men!” Did the future press…

I turn from the mirror to the garden where the December rose grows up orange above the wall. Soughing the grasses chinked in and threaded on its top — the wind displaces the still life of a great turf, like Durer’s. The great gray rain comes slanting down interrupting the museum in my eyes. Ars…

                only partly accounted for by the old delivery truck laden with bread      that hums up the coastline highway                      the redtail hawks switch to and fro on the crosswinds, they           drift towards sunrise and sunset                            stitching the wind of the east to the wind of the west

I like the way wasps always put me in mind of washing, when the summer was bright and the shade fell in stripes from the shutters. Then the blood runs swift in its vessels, the spots on vipers’ skins seem sharper. Even brambles grow venomous, women stroll down to the shore to watch in the…

I meant to be neutral until I saw the doors battered with axes and the windows gone. I thought the town would be just a town, fountains, public buildings, throngs of shoppers, drinkers in the pubs. The party walls between houses stood, their fireplaces open to the sky; and groups of men in caps and…

The Greek takes Trixie on midnight walk, not much talk except she points skunk and he runs after it. Which started Trixie thinking, “Gee this guy’s different. Maybe I feel better if I let him move in.” When she finds out his love ever after stuff means give up stripjoints cut down drugs — He…

The air opens like an invisible flower; the petals of night and day embrace. In the very center a rock stares into itself. Wandering stars come to rest in the shape of a skull. Men and women rush barefoot to the peak, drying their eyes on their frozen clothes. Tears of summer, tears of winter…