About eight of us were nailing up forts in the mulberry grove behind Reds' house when his mother started screeching and all of us froze except Reds—fourteen, huge as a hippo—who sprang out of the tree so fast the branch nearly bobbed me off. So fast, he hit the ground running, hammer in hand, and…
Sweet Jesus, talking his melancholy madness, stood up in the boat and the sea lay down, silky and sorry. So everybody was saved that night. But you know how it is when something different crosses the threshold—the uncles mutter together, the women walk away, the young…
To find a bit of thread But twisted In a peculiar way And fallen In an unlikely place A black thread Before the mystery Of the closed door The greater mystery Of the four bare walls And catch oneself thinking Do I know anyone Wearing such dark garments Already worn to threads First thing in…
for Galina Gabay Green rivers run in February at the curbsides. Moscow is so huge, the snow so deep that when once the melt starts, nothing can stop it. People rejoice at that rushing water as we do at the first snow drops. We walk around goony in mid-March. “Fifty-one degrees,” we say. The sun…
“They said it was the most just of wars because it was against barbarians.” Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle 1. An Irate Official Aren't they going to attack? What do they mean with their casual demand for tribute and provisions? We're a ten-gated city, not a cluster of hovels at a dusty crossroads….
The statues of Greek Gods In the storage room of the art school Where I led Pamela by the hand— Or was it she who led me? Bit my ear, while I raised her skirt. Identical Apollos held identical Empty hands. Poor, imitations, I thought. They belong in a window Of a store going out…
At the airport waiting for our plane, we sat next to a Chinese man. He took off his shoe and sock and massaged his foot, working his thumb and fingers over the sole and delicate arch of the instep. Then he held his whole foot between his palms and forgave it, rocking it gently back…
My deepest secret but not my weight and credit rating. The not-I burns the day-care center somewhere near the edge of the non-example in northern Nicaragua because pity has a pre-modern ten-year-old face with a hundred and eighty handpainted freckles. My repetitions but not my death. It was either a new car or staying home…
What we wondered as kids about the light in the icebox I'm wondering now about love. The apple digesting itself in the pantry. The corpse in need of a shave. All that goes on when no one's around to see it or say what it means. All the king's horses fed to the dogs, the…
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