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A Marriage Poem

1. Morning: the caged baby sustains his fragile sleep. The house is a husk against weather. Nothing stirs — inside, outside. With the leaves fallen, the tree makes a web on the window and through it the world lacks color or texture, like stones in the pasture seen from this distance. This is what is…

Mykonos. Wall With Mailbox

The tacky dromedaries of the tachydromeion, Swaying in place, are yellow and are blue. They browse upon my postcards. The Aegean Gallops in all directions all around them. They are true Stoics. They can go nowhere. And they do. The light grows positively Sophoclean. Towerings and dishevelments ensue. A slash of zacharoplasteion neon Scribbles a…

News From Home

So many times I answer the phone trembling Because of the losses of the past, Concoct a disaster, Never correctly. My young aunt has a tumor, Cancer in the liver and lungs. Didn’t she serve mostaccioli and meatballs A few weeks ago? She said she was tired. At her wedding I was the flower girl….

Apology for Loneliness

She writes that she senses my loneliness and wonders if it’s good or if it maims and I wonder also. But can she sense how it is at the end of the day, after working well and leaving my dinner to cook, when I lie down and feel the darkness seep through the house? Does…

Circe

His knock was worth answering slowly, Teasingly, “Who’s there?”, letting my features, My fragrance break on him in the doorway Like the memory of a phantasy. He was surprised to hear his nickname On my lips; yes, he would “step in for a bit.” Daisies and good silver set my table, Dazzling him, keeping his…

Freudian Slip

Though she coaxes the embroidered silk over her head with the care of someone attending a ball, the slip is transparent, and in the moonlight filtering through the bedroom window, her body is even more real for its inspired accidents: her breasts brazen and shy both at once, mangos and the ordinary flesh. It is…

Summer Ladies

When the car came into sight from in front of the barn, it had already picked up dust, the wheels and shiny hubcaps going round, the windows rolled up tight. Two women sat in the front seat, their hair in silver curls, their powdered faces perfectly still behind the bright glass. The car left the…