This metal blooms in the dark of Rome’s Daylight. Of how many deaths Is Rome the bright flowering? See, the dead bloom in the dark Of the Fosse Ardeatina. The black Breath of the war has breathed on them; Shields gleam, and helmets, in the memory. Their flowering is being true To their own nature;…
An accidental landscape could Close down the approach Sketched in glass, aureate Gravings of soft tropical Foliage, produce heaped on The dock, these islands Are slow. Pale oaken oars Pull each wave apart. A various harbor goes Out draped by narrows.
When I arrive and Roethke rumbas in a green fedora. Hands are strangers large as pockets light. Mine float. They scratch my groin. I scatter punctuation. Rain. Another, quieter room. Allen Ginsberg holding court. ancient poet luminary poor as tinder. The threadbare coat, the light. Shining through thin threads. I’m glad you’ve come he says,…
New willows slantwise in the sun blow all their chattreuse stripes in diagonal flags. Spring is a silent parade thinning the blood with surprise that it can still cause alarm and amazement. Vertical slips of tulip stand in the brown mud— the soldiery of May. By accident I drove to a town near my husband’s…
That you should have disappeared from the landing and have carried with you the dead rabbit that twitched its nose in last summer’s grey green half-dawn and our pale, cool northern night— That I followed without thinking and on foot past the abandoned station, its doric columns, all the furled sails, the upward angling concrete…
The sun’s leached everything, the last dream of heading for some Greek island, the sea blue there as in March, or October. The rain gave out over a month ago. In mind are only the other summers, and my hands, calloused, fit the hands of a friend drowned eight, nine years back in the Wisconsin…
His arms are thin in the lamplight on the long table. Floods of yellow and amber light holding the June roses in suspension with him, his tan touched with a few scabs of baseball. A bead of blood has loosened itself from his wrist and glints like a ladybug as he turns it in the…
He wonders why you keep postponing the party when you have to do all the cooking. One night, it rains for three weeks. Brown water drips from the ceiling and the coq au vin tastes like plaster. His guests raise an eyebrow and he wonders why you don’t just serve the mousse, unflappable as Vogue…
In Durer’s Melancholia a spell nails things to the floor, nothing can travel. The woman with idle wings sits to brood, laurel leaves in her hair. Some tools are spewed at her feet—hammer, saw, nails. A marble block in the background waits for a chisel. In the clutter of the room the hourglass glares like…
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