Who owned anything that afternoon? All but one small pack— even the man I should have been in love with— left on the train without me. I sat, ordered up a sweet brown Pelforth. After all, I could not be sadder than I could. In the café de la gare in a town called Foix…
for R. H. After visits to his hospital bed where sickness slowly played a jazz garden in his head, I watered leaves and stems to a green brilliance, troweled back the influence of weeds, things I'd do for any friend knowing what is temporary. Just days before his release the leaves grew brassy, stems decidedly…
. . .they have passed into the world as abstractions, no one seeing what they are —Georgia O'Keeffe, 1887-1986 1 Late winter light Suppose it comes from the snow blowing all day across your winter road umber with violet shadows Or suppose it comes from some energy farther away that may never be understood to…
The Heart wants what it wants— or else it does not care— —Emily Dickinson So still. Not a cricket. In this heat the trees around the house hold motionless even at midnight. I trundle the electric fan, little pool of wind, along with me from room to room, and imagine Emily Dickinson carrying a candle…
I pick him up and take him to the beach. He is always the same and always his sameness changes me. It takes him forever to fold his yellow shirt and blue Bermudas and finally sit. Counting rented umbrellas, he calls out their red and green colors, updating the information every minute. Sun closes in….
When I first arrived in this city I heard coins falling through the air like rain, light collecting on dusty sleeves, in gum boxes and tins; the addicts walked by a smoking pail humming into their hands. We hiked one afternoon along the river, picnicked in the ruins of a trolley station and played with…
There was a flatiron brick building built to tower over a gasoline station, a billboard against the wall—I don't know, Drink Milk, a white pillar of it filling a glass—a Gulf sign swinging over Princess Street, and at the top of the hill to Garfield Elementary, a bridge over Pennsy railroad tracks, and if a…
I went back to Dagger Point Trail after she moved to Baton Rouge. A plaque at the point says the sea takes back five inches a year, but I couldn't tell. The sand and shells seemed the same and live oak still crowned the hills. I remember the redtail tearing the rabbit on the path…
Almost time to dress for the sun's total eclipse so the child pastes one last face in her album of movie stars—Myrna Loy and Olivia de Havilland—names meant to conjure sultry nights, voluptuous turns across some dance floor borne on clouds. Jean Harlow. Clipped from the Newark evening paper, whole galaxies of splendid starlets gaze,…
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