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Elegy for My Father

Doniphan Louthan, 1920-1952 I do not remember the day you disappeared. I was too young to understand, still small enough to curl up in your hat. When I questioned mother years later, she told me you had gone to heaven, but I knew better. You were in her heart, and kept it beating by pacing…

Nothing to Write Home About

Art Note      Painting a pear today, it occurs to me that what painting is really all about for me (at its best) is "discovery". The discovery of that third slight "bump" along-side the disappearing edge of the pear, which I had originally assumed was an almost straight line. However – the work itself eventually involved…

The Thrush Relinquished

One night there was no moon, and never had been. In the space where the moon was            the weather Stopped, everything happened for The first time.      I cannot imagine space As it then was, the cradle unrocking In the tideless air. The man stopped, the shadow vanished, There was nothing to read. In their…

Mug Shots

“In business you have to know people. . . Try selling frozen pizza in the North End—it’s like shoveling shit against the tide; the more `ethnic’ the neighborhood, the more they like to start from scratch. Everything fresh! Wait a generation, they’ll change. . . Then, move in.” *     *      * “Are you saying it was…

The Loss of the Beloved Companion

Take away death, the last enemy—; and my own flesh shall be my dear friend throughout eternity.                                    —Augustine Watching myself,                  naked,                              in the mirror—;      My penis thickens, erect. For what? It      Is the mind bleeding through the body      Into the light.                  The…

Rain in January

I woke before dawn, still in my body. Water ran down every window, and rushed from the eaves. Beneath the empty feeder a skunk was prowling for suet or seed. The lamps flickered and then came on again. Smoke from the chimney could not rise. It came down into the yard, and brooded there on…

Refuge

It was just after the flood— days, or at most a week. The caretaker’s hut was locked, the windows meshed with wire to keep people, not mosquitoes, out. Poachers’ tracks—the diamondback imprint of tires in mud— stretched under the REFUGE sign to a wooden bridge, splintered by somebody’s pickup or backhoe last March. The bridge…

Beautiful Ruta

I still love Ruta Beautiful Ruta The girl I never met In the bathtub I’m always humming The melody of a song I never heard Even now I taste The pastries I never ate At that garden café In Vienna Each morning I rise And watch my corpse Resting on the bed