Poetry

Why are people wearing antlers in the hospital cafeteria?—Because it’s Christmas, silly. Can’t you hear the sleigh bellsdrifting down like pesticide from all the hidden speakers? Mr. Johansson says he doesn’t get paid                         enough to wear a Santa hat,but everybody else just goes along with it. It’s winter, the elevators ding, the stunned relatives get off…

The Tartars say: After the wedding, we don’t need the music. And in Yiddish it is said: It’s the last one whom the dogs attack. The Italians say: The last to arrive must shut the door. The English say: The last suitor wins the maid. They also say: No one has ever seen tomorrow. Spaniards…

After I finally got over my sense of being a character in a book, and the innocence had gradually drained out of me                                    through the holes life punctured in my container, that’s when I finally had time to stoop down and look closely at the dry, exhausted-looking grass                   next to the sidewalk, blowing back and forth all…

In the endthere is alwaysa little changein the pockets,a few suns and moonsyou couldn’t spend. Nearbythe cloudof a would-be breathdoesn’t move,reprieved but useless. This candle will change all that. Use the last bit of air for light, and heat the hand that shields the eyes and face when it getstoo close or bright. No one…

When I change lanes on I-70 North toward the St. Louis airport, my father points to my sideview mirrors and asks how I like them angled. He tells me he keeps his tilted to show only a trace of his car, a shadow, enough to see where it ends and the asphalt picks up.And while…

That’s how much time they give you to bribe the hall of records for the paperwork you bribe the foreman to sign, swearing you know nothing and owe nothing—no loans, no debtsbefore you bribe a woman to sell your pots and pans, plates, plants, rugs, and record player, so you can bribe a dentist and…

for TP The woman down the hall has a girlfriend. When they fell in love the sea was a finger. It pushed them both in the belly. It rubbed their lips. It ran itself up and down their thighs. Then they got married. The sea came to the wedding and ate the shrimp cocktail. Had…

Before she told me, she let mefinish my dinner. I can still seethe pinkish cream sauceblossoming on the china. I didn’t know yet if I could walkwhen I pushed myself back from the table.This is what gets me:I didn’t throw the stained dish against the wall.I slipped the plastic from my wallet.I signed my name.No…

A poem about “Still Life with Fruit,Wine, Glasses, and a Bowl of Cherries,” by Hendrik van Streek, can’t stay in the painting for longunless it takes a closer look at the blue bowl holding the cherriesand wonders, as the wall label wonders,whether that’s Chinese porcelainshipped to Europe by the Dutch East India Company,or tin-glazed earthenwarefired…