Poetry

The Death of God

A man whose wife's enlarged heart was going learned of a drug That would enlarge the mind. The couple was old, but      enlarging The mind with a drug was a new idea. Make the date late      Eisenhower, early Kennedy. The couple was old, not born in this century, and the woman's      heart, Stretched in girlhood…

The Plot Behind the Church

Behind Church Ebenezer, moral box,      the steep red washed-out slope           grew scrubby pines. Some pennyroyal stank invitingly,      and vines transgressed the narrow tracks.           It wouldn't be right to go back now— was hardly right to go. . . .                 Ten-year-old Lou      squatting, hesitating, blocked by the grave           spirit of big Dr. Marr, the egg-on-legs…

Replay

for Judy Couffer, 1955-1986 All afternoon I try not to watch the shuttle explode. On silent televisions throughout the hospital it lifts, a compact shining house astride a column of flame, curves, and blows apart, each piece leaving its trail of smoke as it dives for the sea. Again and again, the camera slides over…

September, Running With Birds

     High above, the flock hones itself to winter leanness, a plow. The point enters spilling its message.      When one in that two-strand of dark moves out I'm uneasy until      the others regroup, enfold it. There is no possibility of loss, the community      knows where it must go. Threaded, no one can fall as it heads…

Four Bones for Late March

THE MARRIAGE BONE Once broken it tends to give under pressure. Though the knit serves, the gait will always be slightly protective, the limb will remember a fault line, the snap of its failing. It may bear your weight cunningly down the avenues of custom so that no one else notices. Left/right, left/right—walk you will…