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That night was nothing we knew. We’d never seen such stars, not even there, in Texas. My mother held the sky maps and leaned so far back she fell. She wasn’t hurt. Nothing can hurt her, I thought, who didn’t know, and aimed my flashlight at the night, and shot. A long way from here…

In advance, much deconstruction and rebuilding. You guess what each part must do at a crucial moment then memorize the whole. If every click is not dreamlike you take it down again. Much bathing of stars and rings and springs in clear solvents. Letters with numbered codes and curious names go out at night to…

We’ve read much, we’ve forgotten much. Afterward we      unlearned all we had learned — what lead and what gold seals — forgeries, counterfeits, rub outs with a razor blade, a penknife, with gum erasers      or a fountain pen; and the new script spreading on the parchment, betraying the usurper of others’ perogatives and titles, the…

* Is it for me to call her by her name, she at whose command the air is blessed tonight and the roads lie without the slightest ounce of perturbation Ezi di mma? Or is it for me to hold back from all such mention of her name and let what is sheltered rest as…

In our house it’s still dark, the shapes of furniture indistinct, but my attention drifts out the window, I’m vaguely happy keeping vigil at the stove. One moment the sun is shining, the next a wet snow saturates the hills. Dark clouds set the pack of dogs barking, the cows start their slow ride to…

He took off his watch, wound it, undressed. One      movement to unfold the blanket. And he remained like that. He had      forgotten something. There was something he hadn’t finished. The      obstacle: perhaps that red sack on the chair, perhaps the black cap on the trunk. And automatically he turned toward the dark mirror. Inside there:…

Almonds that meet the aroma of horses, and apple orchards in October, oaths sworn in dawn mist, the porgy roaming the ocean floor with one eye open to the sea. I hold you near my elbow, and far away on the mountain you gather the soaked grain that the orphaned Assyrian carries      to his mother….

A few humbling things. Outside my real house there’s an actual picket fence, a flowerbox, one shady maple, and a lawn too big to mow. I said I’d never come to this. I said a lot of things. And sulked, tempestuous, as seasons passed, unworthy of fierce attention. My greatest fear: fathers grew fat and…