Poetry

She has always been clever and poor,        Especially here off the Yugoslav Train on a platform of dust. Clever was        Her breakfast of nutmeg ground in water In place of rationed tea. Poor was the cracked        Cup, the missing bread. Clever are the six Handkerchiefs stitched to the size of a scarf        And knotted at…

In a backwards accident, Men cutting the old furnace Out to make room for oil Find the wedding band that Slipped, in February Nineteen twenty-four, Down the heat vent and melted To a coal. It was the coldest Month of the year my mother Was born, and The Captain Sat quiet while his wife, Her…

Your husband’s laugh, a glass of grenadine.     You greet the guests, steer coats onto your arms. Ice rattles the kitchen: he’s mixing drinks.     You stand where you can keep an eye on him. One measured glance at me, your face a smooth     storm, and I know whatever I’d say—vague murmurings in one…

The weird thing about the place was the speed of light— eight, nine miles an hour, tops. Isweartagod! It was beautiful, though, the way it felt slowing over you like a balmy breeze—light slow enough to catch in a, in a cup, light you could smear on a slice of bread like jam, light you…

for my sister Madeline Then you’ve forgotten how we couldn’t wait for the bulldozers to raze that house on Ridge Road. At the fresh edge they’d butted into the woods, the machines sat stalled for days, reluctant to finish up the job. The goldfish pond had already dried down to its beer cans when our…

for Hermann Michaeli On the day the balls disappeared, men playing soccer suddenly looked like crazy people chasing invisible rabbits through the short grass. Men playing baseball became more clearly what they’d always been: bored teenagers waiting around for something to happen. Spectators, at home and in the stands, believed they were being jerked around…

I tell you she was here again last night. While the wind scratched at the rafters and we were caught up, fumbling in the nightstand for diaphragm and jelly, while Anna was giving her report from sleep, rolling the heavy words through her crib slats like cannonballs—our next child, the child we will not have,…

In the cinder-block waiting room There was nothing but canteen machines And a rack of benches. Outside it began to rain. Another passenger came in. He said the girls in the opposite bar Were getting drunk and dirty. Suddenly one stumbled in with her drunken john, Her hair and dress drenched. She tilted Her neck…

short for daughter—it was the best they could do. Dad raised horses near the Sweetwater, selling to miners. February 1st, three feet of snow and the cabin burned down, though the lucky barn was saved. The day I was born, Father bedded Mother in the stallion’s stall, moving Old Bud in with a mare. Mother…