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He is pulling blood in, trying to be strong in the mirror. The word gives him trouble and he pushes it away, wondering, what will come now? who will come? All his adventures are in his mind. The large muscles serve no one. He dreams of Germany and hopes to be a policeman. He would…

Why does a girl love a girl? Why do you still have messages for me? Descending the stairs in the tubercular house every Easter morn      Melanie would come upon a group of Quaker women they glided over in drabs and whispered things to her alone in her father’s barn she would tell me this while…

All through that Sunday afternoon a kite flew above the Sunday, a tightened drumhead, an armful of blown chaff. I’d seen it gray and slippy in the making, I’d tapped it when it dried out white and stiff, I’d tied the bows of newspaper along its six-foot tail. But now it was far up like…

She’s like the moon: at perigee his tides are out of whack, his coasts tormented. What was one place is called another, farther in or out than on the charts or in old stories. He rents a plane and flies up in the evening to observe as one might an eclipse, or storm, or nine…

Rain stretches along the heaving avenue— The building and clouds are stacked gray on gray. We avoid the rivers of water until it is useless— The rain is full of clothes. *      *      * Later in the year the grass and bushes were so dry we hoped a large wind would blow them away. When…

I. I stood between them, the one with his tawny intelligence and fencer’s containment, his speech like a bowstring and another, unshorn and bewildered in the tubs of his wellingtons, smiling at me for help, faced with this stranger I’d brought him. II. Then the cunning voice of poetry came out of the wood across…

Over Jordan she made her peace. This place had pace—its own. It was like La Puta since life adrift can seem futile. This isn’t to say she didn’t like it where the winds of fortune blew harder than desire. On the other hand, she was assured she couldn’t choose a life, drunk or not, since…

I want to let you know we enjoyed the visit The large spaces were filled food was excellent stayed up late, laughed at what was funny Everyone wished they were there Slept until we woke walked in the city It was good to see you you were beautiful The rooms in your house are you…

(after Corbière) A ruined convent on the Breton coast — Gathering-place for wind and mist, Where the donkeys of Finistère Sheltered against the ivied walls, Masonry pitted with such gaping holes There was no knowing which one was the door. Lonely but upright, in undiminished pride, The old hag of the countryside, Roof like a…