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  • The Perfect Crime

    Her eyes beguile as only the eyes of the beautiful dead can beguile and beckon: as eye-signs in a rebus of painful desire. In her wan complexion, a golden aura endowed by our staring enhances her presence, detailing her sudden, decisive autonomy. And how to proceed? In the light of her murder each clue is…

  • Resting Place

    In every direction from here the uneven hills make a great earthly bowl which we live in. My heart has arrived in the countryside— and would have me consider, on occasion, its increase. Every morning our dog sleeps in the field in the sun. When she dies I will bury her there, deep so the…

  • The Aquarium Lesson

    In water so clear it is taken for air, these fish maneuver like pilots: light-headed, they tilt their rudders for balance. To one side, a plaque tells how a fish may possess a “swimbladder”: filled, it suspends him weightlessly like a still ball whirling on a fountain. We forget this has only to do with…

  • Dolls

                     Not dolls! Beware      the child who plays with them,            who handles little                  men and women      which may even, like us,                        have names to be called by and live in rooms,                  scale models of      home: then beware, the child            who plays with dolls plays      …

  • The Care of Small Children

    1. When they are babies, don’t put them down, even for the telephone 2. Feed them whenever they want 3. They must not cry! (Colic can be relieved by placing them, belly down, on the dryer, while it is running warm) 4. Don’t make them sleep alone 5. Sleep with them until they are four…

  • Bathroom Walls

    A woman sobs on the toilet. Hearing her through the wall, I imagine the pink lace unraveled from her nightgown as she strokes her knees. Upstairs there’s a pop. I suppose a retired barber spread lather on a balloon to test his swollen hands; now he’ll hang himself. No, perhaps two teenagers shyly undressing for…

  • Valse Not

    Transience of all things mutability odes ruins something any thing two step. In college I had a teacher he wrote a book One Man’s Meter he sang Keats to “You’re the cream in my coffee” and advised me “Read a good book after dinner every night.”