Poetry

What if they could speak?: the pawn shop menorahs       and samovars, the cherubs torn from their heavens, suspended forever in limbo, hanging       by five black strings thickened in dust, their gold wings flaking so close to earth; the jewel-       shaped chandeliers unmoored from ceilings; the salty waves in stasis on the black…

For a while I was dropped but I’m back on the assembly line. My boss is the Muse, who cites me for laziness and other offenses. I confess I try on the words in the back room sometimes, do a jig in front of the mirror, and cringe at the difference between what I am…

1. The cherry tree bends not from its fruit but cold. Cold has more desire than tree or beholder to make a pleasing form. I have made a decision to stand under what shelter might be offered by the tree and let all tropical routine submerge under the actual sap that gilds fruit and dream…

after John Clare All dark, and my feet against          the feed-room floor                   scuff cement, find their way          to the light, the switch, which flares on          with a snap of bird-                   wings’ nimble shuffle          and flight, the rafters blowing off feathers,          then my hands against                   the grain bin’s…

translated by G. Wiersma let’s ignore what happened in the past in a place that could be anywhere a lamp flickers between sparks of light in darkness I am precisely etched happiness or suffering just at this moment are indistinguishable

yes no maybe sometimes always never Never? Yes. Always? No. Sometimes? Maybe— maybe never sometimes. Yes— no always: always maybe. No— never yes. Sometimes, sometimes (always) yes. Maybe never . . . No, no— sometimes. Never. Always? Maybe. Yes— yes no maybe sometimes always never.

In the owl’s nest the apprentices sit at the workbench of hunger, jostle and plea and reckless silence, and out in the night —the wind rising, nonce of stars— wings shove aside distance (antipodal stint, fragrance of quicklime), a steeple and moody bronze, spiritual ruckus, loose haft of prayer, lawns stitched with mushrooms, desires and…

I I I . I kissed a flame, what did I expect. Those days, you painted in fire. Tangerine, gold: one would have had to be a pilgrim to walk through that wall of molten glass. And purification could be conceived, if not attained, only after many years, in autumn, in a fire greater than…

The sermon made my husband weep, my baby sing. The singing was innocence, wrong and wry, so I was out the church door, boy in arms, the wind a bigger sting than death. I’ve never felt so myself around death than in that churchyard, son on my shoulders. I pronounced the chiseled names for him:…