He remembered the dog bite. The door opened and under the host, the hostess, their faces unfrowned, both dressed in brown, the dog. And happy to be seen by a boy such as that. So small. And so sudden. A bite as a blur, a blow, pierce puncture red-wrought and tears. Were there? The highest…
Katherine, Katherine, Katherine, Katherine. Black hair, small cold eyes, whom you loved. Cocktease Katherine, chewer of souls. The door blew open and she blew in, a ghoul. Black air, small cold wind, taking everything. Fish-eater Katherine, whose nails dig blood. I’m going to call her pinch-cunt, pickle-lip piss-dribble, shit-smear, goat’s-meat breath. I want to throw…
Sharper than the scythe, which, like the ladder and the boards I couldn’t lift, was long. And quicker, since it was smaller, and, swung in an arc, would sing. I was the age of Latin in school, mollis for mullein, the flannel of whose leaf girls would rouge their Quaker cheeks with, for whom vanity,…
I sat in a crowded place away from you at dinner and did not pray you’d come near: did not imagine the hall our private room; did not want to approach you with an air of feigned indifference, leaving my meal- time companions behind; did not conspire alone to lure you into talk, to feel…
Only God can make a tree “THIS GROVE LACKS AN ALTAR.” —So Latch built A temple and an altar. Templum aedificavit. How shall I remember the use of his tools? (A coffin-maker among the Immortals. What a scream!) —Where is that Latch now? Will I see him again in his shadowy cave On…
Everything rots but flowers leave memories. I was the boy who loved flowers, dried, fresh, not just their fragrance but their bee-stung bodies prayerfully folded into dusty skin. I was the boy who walked limp-limbed, scent-drunk, with the smell of spit on my hands, swearing: Relinquish me of my desire to be sunlit, beautiful. They…
Last night I walked in a field. The moon lit the snow: snow gray as the moon. And tried to remember your face—Luna Moth, circling the cold flame of the moon. At the same moment you looked up, protracting the old angle: self, secret-love, and the moon. The earth was young too. But what’s left…
In the chapel of the Catholic hospice we listened to the list of those who had died in the past six months. I waited to hear the name I had so missed hearing. A woman seated in back comforted a weeping man, her tears hidden, “I told you this would make you feel better. You…
I think I will become a selfish man. That’s what it will take to purge myself of my sick need to give. Strong is stubborn, many-limbed, but single-minded. Alone. I think I will be just like Eric was in boarding school. Early in the morning, when insomniacs sit awake, I would watch him running hard…
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