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…
The Captain becomes moody at sea. He's afraid of water; such bully amounts that prove the seas. . . A glass of water is one thing. A man easily downs it, capturing its menace in his bladder; pissing it away. A few drops of rain do little harm, save to remind of how grief looks…
Three old women sat knitting In front Every time I went by. Good evening, ladies, I'd say. Good morning, too, For it's a lovely day. Finding it in myself to whistle While they stared at me, The way the deaf stare, The deaf and dumb. Two of them resuming their knitting, The third still with…
Hello Sadness come out from around that door the barn door the city steel door that lock that hedge where I see you but feel you not enough to make me proper. Come, sit on my shoulder Sadness now if you're dry or reluctant I'll wet you with welcome, wear you for the weight. I've…
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. —Jeremiah 8:20 The morning before it happens at the rim of the field I wait for the call: the hard ground, the lull, and all around, on the verge the lit houses lie sorted and stored. And now the sound of arrowheads…
Now it's raining again. Will it, luminous, ever take the place of freedom, passion in the capital? The raindrops need not formulate as prison bars— again. The absence of rain was an illusion first one, then the other settled for. It's easy to stay up all night in the music, drinking from the robber's cup—…
A sac of waters and saturated tendrils, The tear-thatch fills the cavity of the chest And presses against the brain stem, the pelvic cradle, The distended cage of ribs. It bobs Heavily, yet urges its rubbery weight around The heart in pliant folds that flex in rhythm With the still-avid laboring waves Of dilation and…
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