Poetry

Neglect

translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak I misbehaved in the cosmos yesterday, a day and night without a single question, surprised by nothing. I performed my ordinary chores, as if nothing more were required. Inhale, exhale, step by step, tasks and errands, and not a single thought beyond setting out and getting home again….

Every Night

Federal holding cell, Hughes County jail Fights. Never quiet—like years back with the folks, but ratcheted-up, bloodied, multiplied, till the badge writes the last two shovers up, says he’ll do the same for all of us if we can’t keep the crybabies smothered I WANT SOME PEACE, SLEEP, NO MORE GETTING OUT OF THE CHAIR,…

Fall Day

after Rilke It’s time, Lord. The summer was so immense. Now on the sundials your shadows stretch their lengths And across the meadows you release the winds. Command the last fruits to swell with life, Grant them still a few days of florid sun, Press them to completion, and like a hunter Chase the fleeting…

Cherries

There’s mercy in the decades as they pass, reducing years of ache to a single afternoon beneath a cherry tree in a terraced garden: the cherries seem to ripen while we gaze, darkening as sunlight starts to fade. You’re talking; I’m waiting for you to realize what you won’t admit for another decade: love is…

A House Sparrow

Sometimes I’ve wondered why it seems happy enough. It hangs around like a meek reminder of smallness, and chirps its slight sound, and flashes its dull brown, in the vague green of summer. And it must think that there in the spread of leaf, where it pauses on a branch, it is hardly ever noticed,…

Does She Have a Name?

The intern’s wand assayed your abdomen with wavelengths    sounding the nocturnal pool she swam within    pale cave dweller    tipped down to pass between existences    asleep forehead globed beneath her body’s question There she is    Everything’s okay    except the blood    a sudden flux enriched your gown tear in the placental wall    Nothing wrong the intern said   …