Poetry

Gruel

Your name is Diana Toy. And all you may have for breakfast is rice gruel. You can't spit it back into the cauldron for it would be unfilial. You can't ask for yam gruel for there is none. You can't hide it in the corner for it would surely be found, and then you would…

Fishing Seahorse Reef

Our lures trail in the prop-wash, skipping to mimic live bait. Minutes ago I watched you cut up the dead shrimp that smell like sex. Now we stand, long filmy shapes jigsawed by the waves, and wait for the rods to arc heavy with kingfish. We bring the limit of eight on board, their teeth…

Joseph Carr (1917- )

Out of the old noon sun still lifting            wraiths from morning's gully,      the phoebe's call assails the barn—      its shingles are nearer the heart of gray in the shadows of those deep            eaves. Summer, the huckster,      wends over Blinn's Hill, having sold      snippets of blue thread, a needle, some ribbon, perhaps a pan…

The Collaboration

That was the summer I used the Duino Elegies in all of my seductions, taking Rilke from my briefcase the way another man might break out candlelight and wine. I think Rilke would have understood, would have thought the means justified the ends, when I began to read in a voice so low it forced…

My Mother’s Way

On Monday she washed, On Tuesday she ironed, On Wednesday she visited her father,      carrying seven starched shirts,      a basket of folded underclothes,      and a complete dinner in foil. On Thursday she cleaned, On Friday she shopped, On Saturday she handed nails to my father,      who swore at her slowness. On Sunday she took a…

Pantoum du chat

Charles and I go out together in his boat, which is a cat- amaran, in the burnishing weather, elated. so it's not surprising that in his boat, which is a cat at top speed among cats, this poem begins. Elated. so it's not surprising that we sing “Speed Bonnie Boat” to the winds. At top…

Love Song: Accidental Species

Remember when we were introduced to the only man in Oregon who had seen Diomeda cauta, the White-Capped Albatross also known as Shy, whose normal range is deep air deep off the continental shelf, and spoke of the Harlequin Duck, of Histrionicus histrionicus: Rather small, he said; mostly silent. You looked at him strangely. He…