Poetry

In the country of urgency, there is a language.                               —Grace Schulman I must have said something to the man in my confusion when I put my hand on his shoulder long enough for a cement truck to breeze by —it would have killed him— instantly, I think, when the light changes and its change falls…

The last tug at the sleeve lets her blouse fall off shoulders to breasts that have never seen a lover, she shudders, shakes so hard I touch the bones inside the song of this afternoon to stop the loud way our fear of us rattles her in the flutter of bugs so fragile they can…

Desire for the good deal, the hot need to look slick, wordless advertisement for the invisible product, I release you like the dumpster behind the cafeteria releases these long, festering rivers of milk. Fear of death, fear of narrow spaces, love of the wine-red mole that punctuates the transaction-inspiring cleavage of Jill, my credit union…

The cookies his neighbors brought by              didn’t taste like pity— at my father’s house              for the first time, after, the locks broken into, now new, when cross              the street comes a neighbor, cookies shrouded              in tinfoil, a plate I need not return.              How long had the pair kept vigil out the window              for someone to…

Because there’s no end to cruelty,                   Lyle ties half a brick                                    to a hen’s foot, climbs the ladder up the water tower                    where waits Tony—together,                                    they toss their weighted hens into space: the flung chicken                    that charts its course                                    across clear air, fans its…

Like grass in rain, my dead grow at an amazing rate. Meet me, won’t you, I’ve managed to lose the key. Death, you’ve outdone yourself. The lawn a little lake.

When Shirley Weems submarines her Barbie in the shallows, spooking the catfish while her brother and me sit on upturned buckets with cane poles on our side of the pond not bothering anybody, I note how the light around Shirley seems so rosy, all a-twinkle with its own self-contained Shirley music. I pick a dirt…

A basket in the shape of a sunflower— still hanging on your bedroom wall. You made it in school. You loved it so much you wouldn’t stop making it. Or couldn’t stop. We don’t agree, on what you said. But I was your favorite. I thought, What kind of boy makes such a basket? Professional…

Some say the Army                                             and some the Marines and some say the Air Force is the greatest sight sweeping over this crippled earth but I say love                       for example                                                        a wedding the bride’s face hidden as though no longer hers to share                                  and the sound of wailing            oh, Anaktoria                                             what have they done the soldiers…