Poetry

Before, I did not believe In lightning, its work, the mad climb up from ground Desperate to marry what descends. The sudden need For more than one path, the white hand spread, The elaborate delta. Before the storm, I did not understand; I thought revelation Would come later, just when I wasn’t looking— The way…

My solemn hens. Electric bulb, the door Locked twice. To keep from hearing the promise of Coyote we dream of the rooster claiming dawn Even as he flees to the unknown forest. But morning brings back what remains And as I enter all eyes turn golden; The autumn haunches shift. How quickly they forget What…

1. I don’t want to say, “This is called . . .” when I’m the one who called it this. 2. I don’t want to explain a poem to people. I want them to explain it to me. 3. I don’t want to pull rabbits out of top hats. But I’d love to hold a…

Ann Mikolowski, 1940–1999 dead/as in                          center                          or right Goya titled his paintings of war things like Shouting’s No Good and Nobody Could Help Them Gaundi hung weights to visualize and actualize his works upside down and now strange hands have forced on a brutality that Gaundi never meant no fluidity in somebody’s else’s…

I’ve wished that I were born a Soviet, so that my presence in America would cause as greatly dignified regret as leads to literary coups d’état— but I am merely Cuban, dark and small as any from a hundred nations which exist for other’s domination. All I say is colonized, if not by rich “protectors,”…

translated by Jonathan Galassi Desire for your bright hands in the half-shadow of the flame: they smelled of oak and roses; and death. Ancient winter. The birds out foraging seed were suddenly snow; like our words. A little sun, an angel’s halo, then mist: and the trees, and us made of air in the morning.

To Spain, and not a single day of awe there. The Spanish swans lifting from the river: no ripples. To sit in a spring whose waters offer no prophecy. The not-expected. No one reading your mind. No stopping the light inside the beast from crumbling. Long ago, a fog came to settle on a low…

translated by Jonathan Galassi Ravager of lethargies and sorrows, night; safeguard against silences, the age of offhand sadnesses re-buds. And I see boys in me still slender-hipped, on the shells’ slope turn anxious at my changed voice.

Summation: It was deliberate. We had to burn our barn, let our harvest go. Precipitations: Mama lost the baby, Father did not come back from town. The chestnuts failed again. We were distressed. Particularly lost. At winter’s eager edge. The Process: We bemused ourselves. Considerations: We could not: leave Mama alone with her cavernous dry…