Poetry

War chariots thunder, horses neigh, the barbarians are coming. What are we waiting for, young nubile women pointing at the wall,      the barbarians are coming. They have heard about a weakened link in the wall.      So, the barbarians have ears among us. So deceive yourself with illusions: you are only one woman,      holding one broken…

What hazed around the branches      late in March was white at first,            as if a young tree's ghost were blazing in the woods,      a fluttering around the limbs            like shredded sleeves. A week later, green fountaining,      frothing champagne;            against the dark of evergreen, that skyrocket shimmer. I think      this is how our…

There is a crooked keloid scar on the side of Tally's golden face that says, “I don't give a damn.” Around his neck he wears the Star of David—no special      significance. His left arm from shoulder down is tattooed marine-blue and between me and you, Tally ain't all there. But why should he care? Down…

Her phone not ringing his hand not tightening on hers not his wiry beard scratching her cheek or his pocked look of having looked at her and not looked again Not his toothbrush on a neat wood shelf far from the sink, the hallway stacked with papers, hung with paintings of nudes without features, shoulders…

1. She sits reading the end of Hans Brinker, and tugs faded flannel over her tucked-up feet so no bit of them can show. She hears him yell “Damn you! You've made us late again, will you—” and her mother, something too soft to hear. She holds her breath; relaxes: nothing falls. When the doorbell…

this is the woman sons look for when they leave their wives —Leslie Ullman Husband Again tonight he sees her eyes burning in the common flame. Windows, too, give him her image at strange times. He begins to breathe like the first daffodils punctuating the April grass. The miles to work he dreams: she rides…

Distance doesn't matter. Not dreams of home or morning filtered through a darker pane or the timbre of his voice in every room or blaming every cruelty on the place or letters no longer expected, unreceived or pigeons streaming bloodless through the sky. Only this wafer of unbending light redeemed a song by all the…

1. The upraised arm, first clenched, ready to hit, fist clenched and cocked, ready to throw a brick, a rock, a Coke bottle. When you see this on TV, robbers and cops, or people in some foreign alley, is the rock in your hand? Do you shift and dodge? Do you watch the story twitch…

She carries the garden tools to the hill And starts to beat a hole She finds a garland of roses Full of ears and salvage A shield bush A crown of peas and a glass of juice She has to drink that first Crown the girl! Crown the two of us      heart and right arm…