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Near Anahorish

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…

St. Mary of Egypt

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…

Thank You Note

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…

The Poet in Residence

(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…

Things Past

Ten years into memory, a house      in the bright fluid time—dark grain of walnut,      dark women’s bodies, flower-shadows            in paintings by sisters. 1632 Walnut Street:      the solid multiples of eight                  like a vintage Oldsmobile, the curves of the numbers,      the porch, its roof,                  the porch light shaped a little by…

My Priest Father’s Words

Your words, my father, are clouds, spirits to inhabit, things to trace in the changes of light. Where fish dart in the shallows and the sun follows on the rise of the island, in the circle of birds, your “historia scholastica” will vanish, like these clouds, each a life with its own shadow on the…

Vigilance

                       You stand waiting. You listen.                        At your back the house is still,            between the tickings of clocks and timbers.                  Beneath the rough soles of your feet you can feel the cellar stretching to its foundations —            silence in the stone, the furnace brooding.            …

Melting 1978

In the night of the changing year I misplaced winter. Tumbling down with the old sins, the promises, I woke up sniffing. No cares. Walkway splashes sing to my ears of an evening in May. The scent of thirty springs is rising. A full-hipped beauty in green, ripe for the flood, bustles over her scrawny…

Coarse Flower

Untouchable mother a smirk instead of a smile a ragged lip— I left you kneeling dirty brown water dripping over your hands I took what I wanted: my own arrangements on a clean table under the window lavish chasteness of one rose for the moon a perfect cup and saucer for a dainty tea Your…