Poetry

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

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

and I answer by driving around, which seemsto me the most American of activities, up therewith waving the incendiary dandelion of sparklersor eating potato salad with green specks of relish,the German kind, salad of immigrants, of allthe strange pickled bits we carryover from other places, like we did on Eastermornings in Nebraska, stuffing our Sundayshoes…

a father has lost his son. He circles shoe racks, lingerie, dressing rooms, calling out “Marco!…Marco!…” We all want to help, but it’s justtoo much: Oh, the tragedy of namingthen losing a son named Marco—born to love and to wander, whole head submerged in the starched cup of an outsized Playtex bra, divingback between a…

Blackbird called Redwinged                                             and I both startle when I stand and turn. Bird expertly                       swerves, flies on; but I spend a few thousand mind…

So thin, the life we had—sometimes I could see insidemy stomach and inside my sister’s the attacks startedwe were sitting in the corner of the living roomaway from the chandelier, my mom didn’t want usto sit under it when we were under attack my sister and I her doll and minethin and tight next to…

This undistinguished        shingled        condominium is closer to Route Six than to the sea so that muffled sound we hear is cars, not waves. The occupants of the adjacent unit are often in the driveway keyboarding in cars. No one is keyboarding, of course, at dawn when I leave for the beach so I can beat…

At the funeral for the young manI’m trying to singthe complicated song And I’m running out ofbreaththere are too many Changes in directionin this song—some parts Are just for the choirthey sound greatup above in their loft Then the men singand that’s surprising—the women Are tentativewhen they singbut sweet The song is mostly about Jesuswho…

Sometimes when I’m reading, I’m distracted by the invisible book underneath the book I’m actually reading and the problem is this: it’s better. It’s like the superball under the couchthat your fingertips barely brush: the slightest contact and it’s gone, gliding easily away, because its form is nearly perfect, there, a sphere in the darkness…