Poetry

Only seem to be there when you look for them At first, almost a secret, except for a tiny spring Or needle's point that peeks out from behind What it's supposed to prop up —Or keep back; but these silver snow fences, Once you've located one, The bands and wires are suddenly everywhere, Tensed, unyielding,…

It was on your father's work bench In the barn that you undid Your skirt: hair, kinked hair Thick as a child's black scribbling, Pink when you breathed And opened. You watched Me watch you. The barn ticked. Pigeons shifted in the rafters, Their wings like prayers as we made Hurt noises and blood cried…

If you feel around with your fingers       there is a corner to every sin       Upon finding that tight spot       one must remember what to do       Listen            I have been out setting this trap       Cabbage is cheap            Nobody has seen me       if I eat right       I'll grow…

The earth already knows too much About us. We dig holes And throw ourselves in, Weep, set stones Where no stone would sleep. The mountains, blue yoke in the distance, Are coming down— Rock, bush, slaughtered tree. The sea is washing salt from the bodies Over and over, and without rest. I tell my daughter,…

Small operas, the seedy merchants at the blurred ends of fuming streets in the immigrant photographs, insist on it. What are you supposed to do with desire in America where your heart is so many poor shops? He takes a girl to the Catskills on a bus. Her dull kerchief and the black hairs wire…

for wisdom bits, I had to act now that father'd suited me up for St-hood. Better late next time.      It wasn't that I minded my toy-razor or lathering up so early, just that the sink swallowing my hairless suds would go all the way to hell and back before it let on there was anything…

It stands like a resentment. The mind's city unfolded to a huge, discordant image. Recollection closes in on the ancient buildings, the fractured curbs, and in all the places you might have known, women walk in the opposite direction. Onward to their first novel, the fictional release. I look through a great eye, seeing more…

“Here I was begging the Muse not to get me in troble with the powers that be, not to make me write out all those ‘filthy’ words, all those scandalous, scabrous lines, pointing out in that deaf and dumb language which I employed when dealing with the Voice that soon, like Marco Polo, Cervantes, Bunyan…

Like through a telescope Planted in a fresh grave, I see through your nostrils, Darkly, the more distant past. Stubborn your horse skull That knows of the price on its head. Like a plate empty for days We stretch our hands out of the frame. A bloody yoke swims through The egg white of the…