Poetry

The beds are long the brine is deep in which I press my thoughts to sleep of all that I should not have said or done or learned I mourn the head that held the hymn if shy if dim if unobtrusive Then salt then chest Then palm then less The lies that made me…

O small sunlight on the bark which faded before I could finish     my sentence and so changed my sentence in its course, so change me. My course is rotten, I channel Monsieur Berry—who am not     such a man. Then let my form of address or my address withal place me zip code not…

           And the sky! Nooned with the steadfast blue enthusiasm Of an empty nursery. Crooked lizards grassed in yellow shade. The grass was lizarding, Green and on a rampage. Shade tenacious in the crook of a bent stem. Noon. This noon— Skyed, blue and full of hum, full of bloom. The grass was lizarding.

There are two pleasures left, something and nothing and though, like money, death gets in the way of having things, there’s an extreme white arbor overhead having nothing to do with mothers and fathers or from how far away their letters pursue a reallocating child more intently than the stem of that flower ending in…

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

Sandspit: Decomposed body found by a moose hunter; stone-frozen corpse surfaced in a thaw; worm found in an imported apple that still cultivates silk for all underwear. Gambell: That’s all statues by the bridge. Try deering on the south shore of Sound or the outermost escarpments of the Outer Range. Angoon: Game Brain. Maim Brain….

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…

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…

Let me pin the hair from your damp forehead. Chinsucker. Unlearned skin. In the next room I think they are building something with chicken breasts and string. Hold still. Do not kiss the displays. Were we given two of everything we should want one more. Strap of canvas, strap of leather, buckle. The rear spar…