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 set foot here so they…
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 wings and flaps a few feet with all the glory of a crippled helicopter, thereby…
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 outdoneyourself. The lawn a little lake.
When Shirley Weems submarines her Barbiein the shallows, spooking the catfishwhile her brother and me sit on upturned bucketswith cane poles on our side of the pondnot bothering anybody, I notehow the light around Shirley seems so rosy,all a-twinkle with its ownself-contained Shirley music. I pick a dirt clodI don’t think contains a rock, but…
To Yusef Komunyakaa When I rise from the bank the water’s slow as shadow in my steps, thick as blood. The whole river’s secretive, still, dark as roux cooled in the skillet, as rank, as sweet, ancient as catfish, ancienter. The moon’s sifted light clouds rumor to lilies or daffodils, an egret on the…
Thoughts have gone wolf again, hunting for reasons in the dark.Suppose we were never supposed to fallinto each other’s arms? Made a bone-boattossed all our memories in— watched it sail. There’s a chance I know nothing and I will stickto you like…
Pretend a boom box blasts over your shoulder. Raise your hands in the air. Twist them as if picking mangoes. Look to the right as if crossing streets. Look to the left, slowly as if balancing orange baskets. Bend as if picking cotton. Do the rump. Straighten up as if dropping firewood. Rake, do the…
watched a crew wipe the family namefrom the face of our supper club. The new owners slappeda cartoon moose on the sign out front. If I tell him I love him,either he is holding my little hand while we step across an icy parking lottoward a greasy burger joint or he is on his deathbedand…
Blackbird called Redwinged and I both startle when I stand and turn. Bird expertly swerves, flies on; but I spend a few thousand mind…
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