Poetry

Bare trees in front of brown buildings. A pale dry wreath. The bright red ribbon hanging and broken stands for all this century’s cruelty. The street is quiet. Mammoth fog spreads along the ground. The ribbon should be enormous, the road should be made of ribbon, the trees swathed, the babies swaddled. Men should open…

From a spoon to a city —Ernesto N. Rogers, designer, 1900–1969 In the useless pages of Domus, the trade journal of utilitarian interiors, no one’s friend sits on foam, having postconsumption microevents in series, in unsudden red contexts, in the crook of luxury. The dial was big and lobotomy-white wardrobe doors, blaring like mimes in…

Pursued by her suitor and he, by her father: one appears monstrous, the other no bigger than her thumb. Parallax, paradox, open the locks. She nailed her shadow to the fork of a tree against pursuit. Two knives crossed put a hex on the table. She read disaster ahead: three swans flying together, an infant…

Just give me a second to leap from your path each time your need to run me down speeds up, your just-hit-thirteen split- second shattered glass brilliance spilled. I’ve had to extricate you from yourself, to hoard each shard of hope, refusing your oceanic effusions, to find an inland calm where I can slowly wind…

When was the last time     you blew your nose         on a morning glory? Toddler sister picked the morning     glory—but not to do this,         but to do that. Squatting in the woods—     the broad soft leaf,         always most welcome. Your devout prayer is answered     when the broad leaf        …

The first item up for bid: a charming new gazebo. It’s made of wood that smells like wood that smells like gunpowder. Like everywhere, it is a place to sit. But this is different. I mean, you can put the cat in there, and before you know it, catheter. I think I didn’t say that…

Holding hands on the big wheel fifty feet above the Tuileries’ evening jasmine, I loved your play at fear, my brave stab at insouciance, the way the bright circuitry of Paris lay beneath us like the night sky, like the plan of our lives.

There’s no such thing as a rich sex life. Sex is poor. But sex isn’t the only thing That’s poor. Black-eyed Susans and purple loosestrife For instance haven’t got a prayer. The ring She wears causes a certain Platonic sting Like bonsai trees, which make me claustrophobic. Seeing her without it could make the angels…

Challenged in the marketplace About the flagrant masturbation The philosopher said he was sorry He could not assuage his hunger as easily. This philosopher of the marketplace Once famously appeared With a lamp in the broad daylight In search of one honest man. It was always the marketplace Where of course he had nothing to…