The woman sat down in the thrill of afternoon. Around her the gray sun where the czars of space erected their drastic towers. It was nothing, she thought, leaning her head back. This vertigo and its ghost: hunger. She felt her head dropping to her knees. Wrapped her arms around herself. Ate the stolen torte….
after Robert Hass All the new drinking is about loss. In this it resembles all the old drinking. The idea, for example, that each boilermaker erases the voluminous clarity of any idea. That the clown- teared sucker groping the beer-splotched top of that jukebox is, by just his presence, a someone falling sick in his…
Only one Disorderly Person was reported (No one cared enough to report me). Likewise, only one Noise Complaint (Can the whole village be deaf?). And, in an entire year, there was only one case of Indecent Exposure (Is no one paying attention?). Talk about breaking records, in all of 1989 there was only one Disturbed…
She had her feet in the trough, Nosing into the golden corn, When Daddy did a half spin & brought down the sledgehammer. She sank to the mud An oak branch bowed As they tightened the rope To a creaky song of pulley wheels. A few leaves left For the wind to whip down, They…
Open in the name of the law is spoken. This is now known to happen. Then the necessitous fist-fist against door. We slid from under and up from our divan (where viewmastering The 120 Days of Sodom, whistling rap versions of “The Internationale” while subliminally broadcasting passion wrists and paws extended, ready for the cuff,…
Breakfast by the roadside, my vehicle shimmers like an opal. I'm hunched over a map, savoring the odor of burnt catfish. My carriage is a frisky nightflower on wheels. At this rest station I am careful not to cause injury to the heather, though organisms smaller than arithmetic routinely vaporize upon my approach. So even…
1 We stood so the day slanted Through our dime-store magnifying glass. Girls laughed & swayed, caught On the wild edge of our scent. A scorpion of sunlight crawled Each boy's arm, as we took turns Daring each other to flinch. Not Knowing what a girl's smile did, An oath stitched us to God. 2…
A single shout and you were not the one I thought you were. Cowed by stoplights, horrored by the barking muses. I would never get over those boss-beaten days. Mile long arms. A city dense as a broom closet with a baby in a basket. The Judas in the eyes of passersby. One spot of…
Mama Elsie's ninety now. She calls you whippersnapper. When you two laugh, her rheumatism Slips out the window like the burglar She hears nightly. Three husbands & an only son dead, she says I'll always be a daddy's girl. Sometimes I can't get Papa's face Outta my head. But this boy, my great- Great-grandson, he's…
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