Poetry

In the dark field, The question is the same. Desiring to sit and not sit In one place. And write nothing about smoke, Flaring birds with diaphanous wings, A crow’s intent, how slow the elderly Beneath spangled trees—how thoughtful their retreat. One bottomless pot. But I can’t keep Roethke out of my thoughts, Tu Fu…

Only symmetry harbors loss. —Lorna Dee Cervantes                 Throatlatch. Crupper. Martingale. Terret. My breath                         tightens around him,                                                 like a harness. Once a year         he eats a spoonful of dirt             from his father’s grave.                                                             In his sleep                                                 he mutters lines                                                             from his favorite flick,                                                 Capulina  …

Here I am, confronting this bowl kept under guard and pressurized glass in the archway of the St. Louis Art Museum, and somehow it feels good to note that it’s not all that impressive. Clean, sure, and smooth, but plain. Like this was just the demonstration piece by the teacher of a pottery class who…

I don’t believe in ghosts though I’ve seen milk-steam wandering a darkened room. I don’t believe a big mind regards all sparrows though I admire the faithful, how crossing a street or a continent of trouble they seem confident and frank as stars. Cranky and cratered, I maneuver like a moon of bright remarks. In…

I hear a generator buzz, I taste those days, citronella swirled with cardboard meals and ice unlimited, and the welcome thrill of Katrina’s king cake dolls, half-ounce bottles of Tabasco packed with MREs marked “Chicken Fajitas.” People thought our food was special made, a little heat singing to the tongue of home, but I knew…

We’ll never know for sure now, you in your garage with the motor on and the tailpipe clogged and the door closed, three days before the trial. Your wife found you after she found the note, and this morning the numinous beauty of low fog in our field has taken on a strange gloom, a…

You’ve got to have a little faith in people, the girl says, blinking tears. She’s seventeen, the wise, shy center of a film where couple after couple split, East Side lovers blown round an unending storm, while past them whirl parks, cafés, planetariums. The screen (she’s sobbing) swears by Woody Allen’s smile like lead anchoring…

(Tyrannus tyrannus) That bird towering: late summer garden: who senses the burring wings deep inside roses and like the angel before all nectar’s sipped before gold scatters in bright air descends from its high height to lift away the bee… not a honey eater: though looking so: bee after bee disappearing into incandescence:: Only the…

At thirty-nine each apple reminds me of some other. The memory lives in objects: fallen from trees or baked like pie. I kiss my daughter and remember my own face kissed. All Broadway music is from a play I saw with my father when his eyes were fine. Certain words or smells evoke the faces…