Poetry

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…

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…