Five women, talking while spring came: petals of the hand; the whispering of rain. One talked of loneliness; sudden alarm: four startled deer leapt into the distance. One measured the spirit the length of the night, a seismograph charting the rising of tremors. One of her husband thought always/his absence, her heart sheathed in grief,…
The day will come when I will Share once more the quilts And pillows I am storing Away. Once more I will shyly Let you undress me and gently Unlock my sealed jewel. I can never describe the Ten thousand beautiful sensual Ways we will make love. Huang O 16th century From THE WOMEN POETS…
There was nothing left to consume except epsom salt and water and, as the box of epsom salt was labeled USE EXTERNALLY, we knew that we were taking a chance. But, we mixed the salt with the water and sipped it down. Immediately there were vomitings, followed by some deaths. However, the act was not…
(For Sister Madeline DeFrees) The old man on the prison work release gang hoeing asphalt followed us to Wilkeson and those cyrillic graves, to Carbanado and that one long empty street, Voight’s Creek and then Kapowsin and our picnic in a field of mint. Wherever we went, old haunts I wanted you to see, he…
— JB, H & Mr. B This is the death of water, the sky gone bad; This is the wall of blurred names; This is the drop of wax, the shined shoe; This is the noise, the wardrobe of no address — And this is the shirt, bone shirt, chalk and chalk dust, Its coat,…
1. He is kept circling airport after airport, while his woman goes through the atlas, alphabetically. 2. They were married in the fall. 3. He loves her and gives her a ticket to prove it. 4. They are beautiful as a football team. 5. This is not a roman-a-clef. 6. Lake Michigan never makes a…
One of us would spot his horse, same white as his mustache, and word traveled on warm air. While he solicited orders at doors we stole pears from his cart, that battered gray board flatbed held together by luck. He was obsolete as promise. His apples felt firm green and his cherries were loaded with…
The Holston lolls like a tongue here, its banks Gummy and ill at ease; across the state line, Moccasin Gap declines in a leafy sneer. Darkness, the old voyeur, moistens his chapped lips. Unnoticed by you, of course, your mind Elsewhere and groping: the stuck clasp, her knees, The circle around the moon, O anything….
I don’t like watching the news. Today’s thefts have nothing to do with yesterday’s; there is no brotherhood of victims, no handshake of loss. It is as unexpected as love, and as private, indifferent as California to Iowa’s harvest queen. But the weather, earth’s continuing serial, binds us all with questions asked in every language:…
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