Poetry

The Poet-In-Residence

He makes a myth of everything he does: At dawn he puts his shirt on—that's a poem; At night he takes it off—same deal. Alone, He drinks to blot out the young man he was. Oh, he was fine—muscles rippling, the fire Of subject matter in his eyes: his home Was what he wrote about…

Almanac

1. The sky is like the belly of a snake. 2. My mare shakes powdered sugar from her coat. 3. How much freeze and thaw can tulips take? 4. The river's out. We come and go by boat. 5. John Deeres upholster fields in corduroy. 6. Shoots flicker like heat lightning through the dust. 7….

The Critic

The “texts” hang from her jaws like bags of feed— The one end chews; the other drops its pile. The nameplate on her door reads, or should read: “World's Largest Overstimulated Child.” Like Pegasus, she takes the “aerie” view— (Whose work holds interest if her own cannot?)— And trundles down the runway, lifts—(Mon Dieu! The…

Jeanne

The insistent logic of rain makes you turn from the window and try once again to read the book that made you cry when you were thirteen, the age the Maid of Orléans saw St. Michael ride down from the flaming sky and tell her to mind her mother and always be a good girl….

The Daughter’s Brooch

Just before their divorce, still living Like a king, he bought me a donkey Pulling a cartload of flowers. The one gold wheel Under my fingers spun around in the light. I wanted his drunkenness, His laughter lost in smoker's cough, his lies About Lila and Nadine, the secret phone calls To stop. If I…

Kern County

No, in another place, it was at a wedding or a funeral In the washed and stamped hills back of Goleta That some large brave dangerous men standing before you in      your party dress Happened in conversation upon the same wide abandoned      road Each had known separately and successfully That led to the dead Boys'…

Bronx Bombers

“In a way, athletes die twice. We die the day our careers end; we are usually young men when that happens. Then we die again, finally, completely.” —Lou Piniella, Sweet Lou Those seasons, fans showered Reggie with his own Candy bar, cheered a team with the slick likenesses Of Graig Nettles, so effortless at third,…