Poetry

never quite buried altogether you and I in summer’s newer-than-new same light groom the dumb breathtaking throng of sprints resigned again to put everything we have on the animal that never comes in

After seven days of round-the-clock jackhammers and hot-tempered chisels, the bones surrendered. The hands, which were to be sent to watchmakers, kicked up, incessantly pantomiming. The feet were toenailed onto sunflower stems; both sent, heads bowed, captive, to Diaghilev. Since there was so little heart there to speak of, the cavity stored C-clamps and wisps…

The six directions which form a sheep     are proof enough of Plan. Plain to see why the head belongs on top:     to view the view. And why The ewe must brace her hooves     against the earth. The belly Rides beneath the back, to ease     digestion on its downward tract. As teats…

The gear gold inside the golden-case clicks A hidden hour equal-to (an inch Of snow—between two hands, quartz-like—falls) equal-to The hour seen: jeweled-movement, minute-gear, in glass The main-spring winds the hour in the eye. One hour, measured twice: less equal seems The snow untracked to the foot-trod snow. I know. I know I know. I…

Once was a story of following following. Return is rarely the reverse I value or so I led you like a zero out the zoo, toured it twice at once from your regard, and came to understand. Roughing it, a captive is another whom a captive asks, which one of us stays wilder. We watch…

His anguish was the squeeze of strangers ravaging his language, English, his anger, strangled, snapped him free at twenty-one to choose a certain simmering neighborhood in the city for revenge, carnage, and split the scene with a new name, gunman, lavished on him by newsmen as he crossed state lines, tuning in. A small boy’s…

Terrace Storms are inconsequential. A terrace always reverts, loyal subject, to the sun. Hallway A tunnel of betweenness. Here anything can bed anything. Back Fence I only wish it were higher. Don’t watch me. Front Porch Goddamn Astroturf, who’s it trying to fool? The one lone step, a mendicant slab— ungenerous to a fault, fatal…

I have been a day boarder, Lord. I have preferred the     table to the Bed. I have proffered, Lord, and I have profited, Lord,     but little, but not. I was Bored, Lord, I was heavy, Lord. Heavy bored. Hopeless,     Lord, hideous, Lord. Sexless. I was in love, Lord, but not with You….

I don’t know what I was thinking taking us to the Museum of Surgery but we left very glad of anesthetic and the sky entirely uncut-open. Later, it was nearly impossible to see the haystacks because it turned out we were in the Museum of Museum Guards. One woman was eight feet tall, her head…