It takes a needle to complete the job— pick the two choked eyes empty of the thread, pick out the particles of sweater wool. It takes a dark, thin book to tray the pickings (they're hard to gather off her skirt, the floor) and chute them in the trash can; takes her tea-tin container for…
At your feet, I am a shoemaker’s apprentice, Toxic in a long day of fumes. I’m listening To the fluorescent light come on In April, an Isadora flinging her hot white scarf Across a month mottled by the chemicals Of Daylight Savings Time, in the spokes of the wheels Of hormones turning in the unseasoned…
Gone to seed, ailanthus, the poverty tree. Take a phrase, then fracture it, the pods' gaudy nectarine shades ripening to parrots taking flight, all crest and tail feathers. A musical idea. Macaws scarlet and violet, tangerine as a…
We never had a cabin in the woods. We never had a yard, a dog, a child. We never lived in the same neighborhood. We never ate, half-naked, on a tiled terrace over the vineyards in Languedoc, or drank milkshakes on the toweled front seat of that fifth-hand Chevy pickup truck whose gears required a…
Two lovers met. It wasn't lovers' lane, But a lesser traveled road. No others came. One lover held the other's hand. The other Man was me. I watched as if I hovered Far above the scene. And as the sky Began to prickle with the stars, I tried To understand why the other couldn't free…
How many times in this family rain have I wanted a sudden shelter, the phone to ring, a blanket of pines 12 feet above my head and growing up thick 50, 60 feet. No rain then would get through. But the heedless rain comes down. The wish for shelter, confused under this flood of water,…
Though we're flat on our backs at midnight under the enormous sky, I know I'm really in the Fels Planetarium in Philadelphia, where I've come with the other third graders for the Star Show. Tonight the trailing blazes of white explode across the darkness like firecrackers and my companions ooooh and point and say, Over…
1. When the day arrived I Pushed your gurney to where A noiseless orderly Pressed for an elevator To drop you down and down To the operating room. The telephone rang too soon. Returned to the hospital, We heard the exact surgeon Present a schedule: In seven months, he said, Father, you would be dead….
He's nervy, speaking through my voice while enjoying both sunshine and shade on the same safe street. Is he hiding behind that laughing tree? No. He could be farther away. A stranger approaches me on the street with a rose, let's say, or a message from someone back home. I'll accept the message or the…
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