Poetry

1. Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and so on to the ultimate loss—a battle, a world. In other words, the breeze from this butterfly’s golden wings could fan a tsunami in Indonesia or send a small chill…

A wolf whose eyes glow red and jaws close quick meets the voluptuous Miz Nude Bo-Peep beside a shepherd with a crooked stick: and, ever after, they enthrall lost sheep. The wolf prowls round the shed. Straw, timber, brick— he’ll blow through walls, smash every windowpane. But wait—he’ll cut the sheep a deal. It’s trick…

Some cruel entrepreneur glued jewels onto wings to prevent their broad, papery flowering, the ruby or sapphire or smoky opal hump wedged in an oval frame, its frail gold chain blunted with a pin, so the exotic beetle, living brooch, could plod its strict loop. Pinned to my mother’s monogrammed blouse, that insect circled her…

1. Eisenach, birthplace (in 1685) of J. S. Bach. Close-by, on a high hill, Schloss Wartburg, the Thuringian landgraves’ ancestral stronghold. Which also sheltered music, judging from Elisabeth’s aria in Act II of Tannhäuser, a paean addressed to the castle’s Great Hall as she waits for the Minnesänger to file in and join her. Music…

A year after your death, I leaned above My desk, and listened to gullshrieks rising off The shoreline I imagined—shapes of driftwood, Glistening sacs of jellyfish, whatever Washes in—page after page of days Misplaced in the leaden interim . . .                                                           One evening, I felt it before I saw the seam, the tremor Widen—felt…

In barracks, Grandma, did dust chafe your lips? The men played poker, the women played bridge. And guards, rifles, the chain of black sleek boots? The girls cut out dolls, ripped paper in skirts. Or towers, gleaming, plugged with silver barrels? The copperheads slid through tundra and thistles. My mother, born in camp, draining your…

The city is still the same handful of glances, Glimpses of alleyways like wounds laid open, Balconies of laundry drying, names of streets Unfolding in the smells of fishscale, kelp, And poverty . . .                           Across Fleet Landing, sheets Of blind-white glare seethe off the spires and stairflights Through me, through my sea-pitched, sea-numb…

War Relocation Center” in a Dream   A lotus is a lotus. A train is a train. No, this train is a lotus, this lotus is a train.   The petals are white swords. The engine a head of steam. No, petals are spumes of ash blooming from this train.   The bud opens to…

Work boots in the basement thrown against a wall. The garden dies in the mind— nasturtiums entwined on a chain-link fence. The gods he carried nothing but dried crusts. That vintage bottle on the table crushed more each time he hammers it.