for Eleanor Wilner Sometimes there is even too much of what we don’t want. This dancing planet, its many communiqués hurtling across us. My lover types endearments into space, swears he can only see my back. Something in it that is diluted and dark, something in the distance that is lunar,…
Words, together we’ll have the wedding feast, I’ll spread the canopy, bring the glass for you to crush. You’ll arrive early, time and light in your pocket, dark boxes in the car, each with the name of an object. Alone this way, no guests expected—jars, bottles, vials with things like knife, cloud, and blood. Leave…
Glad to see people thought of it, brought Warren’s darts, a bag of chewing tobacco, his baseball cap, a book of poems, some photos. Glad that the mortician tried his best to dress him in coat, shirt, and tie—the wound was through the back and out the chest, I keep thinking—and firm the lip, close…
Slice of yellow wind in yellow curtains I sewed although the house was never mine except where the rod went through. Breeze does it. Or snow on pines. Faint click of yellowing spoons. Or crow-call piercing snow-pine reflected in the spoon-shaped past, its wing its crescent moon. Seeking any equally black thing. There,…
Like following a woodland path again and again Used to We made love like nobody’s business Things so far Have been good for me only the first time around The deeper the day, the lonelier the blue Thank the Lord the window’s open Baby’s got gas Like smoke in humid air We’re graceful, our hair…
Son of a felon, his father was famous for eating through the wall of a Wisconsin prison. Seven hours later his conception in a Villanova railcar. It was a year of locusts. All he knows is clothing: days with the flat iron and dry cleaning fluids. Starch. I tape my hems straight, and nothing gets…
This morning, our first snow. It only sticks to roofs, the grass still green and brown. Right now we are bombing Baghdad. I’ve finished my coffee, lit another cigarette. The halogen-white ceiling, the windows fogging up. Neighbors leaving for work and coming home from work. In the kitchen, bacon popping. Right now my father sleeps…
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…
Fall 1992 - Digital