Poetry

The Mountain

for CHW (1916-1979) 1. The Mountain A meadow in Vermont, on Bread Loaf Mountain. I watched you walk with a dancer's quick walk along the path on the edge of the meadow. Your shoulders were bent like a scholar's but your legs were the legs of a dancer. Your jacket, thick for a hot summer…

Wanting

Coastal rain, an iron sky. Granite mainland, granite island. It's too cold, I'm too cold, to row across to the mainland. The pickup needs an inspection; I ought to row over across and drive her to Gray for a sticker. Let it wait. There's still time. There's time this morning to read the whole day,…

The Radioactive Ball

I caught it and screamed for water. Someone carried a pail, I plunged my hands in. The water boiled. I wore violet gloves beaded with glass. Now what do I do with this water. How can I pick the pail up, where should I set it. How to turn doorknobs and enter rooms and not…

Taking the Light Whitely

Certain habits can seem miraculous in the thoughts of the dispossessed: to have chosen your own clothing from stores and then your closet, to have shaven yet again in the mist dulling your bathroom mirror— such are the dreams of the homeless. . . I rarely consider my fingers or tongue until slicing or slamming…

Love on Ives Street

I. The landlord's daughter speaks of it in Portuguese as if she were eating a flower. On the corner, her slender arms crossed like the words of caution whispered between sisters, she watches cars slide by with an intelligent eye, studies their shapes as abstracts of possible entanglements. Only her father's house has a garden,…

Visit to the Prison Farm

No cows in summer's last alfalfa behind the chainlink fence topped with barbed wire— a fence just higher than a man, while in the duty room—clean, without the septic smell of public asylums and painted primary green— two inmates back from Work Release slap and rattle a Coke machine, younger than I'd hoped men doing…

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…