Poetry

He was believed by his peers to be an important poet, But his erotic obsession, condemned and strictly forbidden, Compromised his standing, and led to his ruin. Over sixty, and a father many times over, The objects of his attention grew younger and younger: He tried to corrupt the sons of his dearest friends; He…

What I knew was that part of my body was leaving. A pinch of it on the flow out through a bare arm surrendered to the fluorescent scrutiny the clinic. Like a bite, I was told, this tearing into, and yet I did not look, did not care to see the thickening in the vial,…

I saw them everywhere: in the backyard spiraling up inside the pale lilacs, invisible in the hall closet where old books were stored, even playing in the fireplace ash. Late at night, I’d bump into them in the bathroom. The tile floor was icy and they were on their knees, all those homeless spirits, blowing…

My life ago, in this renascent slum shabby Jews in sweatshops, with irregular papers, wherever they came from, gathered mid-morning around a samovar enthroned amidst rows of Singer sewing machines. They trusted the Republic. They were last seen being beaten with rifle butts onto sealed trains. Their great-nephews are Orthodox extremists; their great-nieces are hash-smoking…

        Inside ourselves, inside ourselves so long             we are engravened there. Inside     the hot streets mazing                   from the Suq to fractious cul-de-sacs, piss smell     & whitewashed alleyways,             mules & taxi radios throbbing Rai                   & still inside ourselves. (Still with our own canopic jar—     pulsing from its negative        …

from “The Changing Face of AIDS” The day he came to give his estimate, the rap he played came echoing amidst the tall Victorians that line our street— a jarring rumble, even in the cave that they create. He wore a rumpled shirt emblazoned with his name. “I’m Rafael— it’s nice to meet you, Dex.”…

Cy Twombley, set of five paintings, 1985 Here it is, the Impressionist garden raised to another level of fluidity, no shape assembling itself in a wash of pink and red, a watery garden where one color flows into another, roses blazing and bleeding, pink, crimson, carmine, scarlet, until the color flames to blood, the colours…

Two months after she died, Billy asked: How’s Lynda doing? Billy, I said, she died, remember? Under the weight of supper’s constellation, the table wavered. Manic, he’d cook and then he’d insist on cleaning up: it calms me. Just now remembering, I remember, embarrassed, he’s dead, too. What’s the distance between a source and its…

November 1997 Its bare branches the winter before were exuberant scrawls against a blank sky about to snow and then snowing, or runes punctuated by the brownish-gray question marks of squirrels. And this fall, the leaves were so gold they looked heavy as Cleopatra’s burnished throne or as some feeling unexpressed. The one tree in…