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                 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      …

He had spent the morning shooting birds out of the air. Along the lower edge of the field he worked each week, the dog pressed before him through tall, autumn grasses, pressed ahead, then stopped. Birds burst up toward the light, up into the perforated air. Among the hardwoods, between their roots and the creek…

Speckled grey smooth belly of a lake trout. Azure swirls, cerulean glaze plum-rose smear runs clear along the lip. What a pleasing affirmative heft these bowls smoking clean from the dishwater blessed with a calm and rightness bless us.

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…

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…

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.”

I chose a forest, once, bridges of branches, animal tunnels, This forest spoke to me—basso profundo My outer balance was maintained by setting Space from fore and hind, in direct proportion to Nature’s inclines Inside, I put my bedroom in the basement, ate in the attic and talked and worked in the middle Rearranged the…

A row of green and blue bottles, the light coming through hits a spot on the floor where the cat lies down. A young woman strokes the cat, examines her own fingernails holds onto her plane ticket away from her understanding. To the assassin’s sleeping brain. To the true image of the universe. To a…

Grace. When the child is asleep you hold me with arms hewn like your wood and whisper: Grace. It is your name for me. You believe in prophecy. You are a proud father. I stroke your forehead, wrinkles lead down to the beard. You are not a handsome man. You want more children. I am…