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(for Quincy Troupe) Harlem is on parade recalling St. Louis as if like us the whole scene has been transplanted here Sanford White’s window offers remnants of James Van derZee’s world it is filled with urgent gospels infecting us both with memories of our common birthplace I see you take notes always the poet but…

Pool tables always reminded me of paintings by Tanguy— objects connected to each other by shadows on an uncertain ground. I would stare down the shaft of light on the stick, distracted by the desire to lie down on the green moss of the table, the desire to treat the balls as gently as eggs…

for Katherine Who knows why we talk of death this evening, warm beyond the measure of breath; it will be cool tomorrow for in the waters off Long Beach my brother’s ashes still collect the flowers of my mother and father, my sister dropped in the vase of a face they made of old places,…

From his travels, my grandfather used to send postcards. Among the pile of letters, they lay thin as turned leaves, their postage stamps shining with luminous moths and fish. The pictures always showed what he had seen: “This Persian rug was woven by girls your age. It’s the same shape as the floor of their…

Chrysalis of shadows, we kneeled before it those long winter mornings to learn the tender fragility of shelter; match-stick tables, tiny mirrors smooth as the sea. Our hands were giants’ hands. We learned each walled-in space is like the heart: small doors leading to more doors, long hallways giving way to secret chambers; the mute,…

There are times that falter like flowers in front of me, and times that take root in my chest like a change of heart. Certain kinds of foliage respond to me. Ferns, for example, are onlookers. There are also flowers that have died, only to be born again like old opinions. Perhaps it’s true that…

The women who clean fish are all named Rose or Grace. They wake up close to the water, damp and dreamy beneath white sheets, thinking of white beaches. It is always humid where they work. Under plastic aprons, their breasts foam and bubble. They wear old clothes because the smell will never go. On the…

A thousand rocks grow smaller. The tide returns again and again. Eternal truths wash up on the shore hidden amongst the shells and fish bones. No man will ever find them. In small houses, the women wait, tying and untying black shawls around their shoulders black scarves around their heads. Birds do not come here….

None of this seems real, seen from the east and older. The red-eyed Guernsey bull, his warning signal stopped by the stooks of corn. This wilderness is Thickly Settled and the Berkshires’ blue surrounds my day.            In Amherst, everything checked in its fall: sacrificial stance of thistle, flash of pumpkins in the field, tomatoes…