Poetry

One looks into the well with his own eyes and watches the bucket always the same bucket go down into the dark. He knows there is a mother, a father, a river. This much is the same. But the dark is his own. They name it Freedom here. Your face comes up slow from the…

What is a farm but a mute gospel? Emerson Red deer stop sucking at turf as though the living came to life in a pose. And the queen-sheep, white ruffs on the neck, gaze with renewed immobility at their shepherd in moonboots stalking the volatile hush of a hidden reactor. In a true pastoral, he'll…

Harvard Botanical Museum This is the story      of a father's faith in transparency,      the stuff of glass and flowers in light      that made him teach his son to look so much      at the water lily that its stem became a living      vase that could be made with white glass,      flames, and fine wire. In small…

I drew a circle of my blood I stood inside and made a vow I said that I would never move Until the animals appeared I stood inside and made a vow On the men with coyote heads Until the animals appeared Or the women with speckled wings The men with coyote heads All my…

My students, pink as Barbie Dolls, Clean as the coins they slip Into arcade games at the mall, Live in tenements of ignorance. Headlines are meant for someone Else's worry, like taxes Or insurance on the Camaro Which Dad sees to. When it comes To Winnies, they don't know Mandela From Pooh. In the film,…

I There is a place between the shoulder and the neck Where everyone wants to be saved. And another where the leg slices the heavy hip. These are arable fields, for human hands only. You speak my name like you need it And mine for veins Which will ring your own name Like a pick…

You are not yet asleep, your breathing slides deep into the sound of rain, its various sounds: the tap on the tin roof, the slash as it blows across the screen, a swish that washes across the shingle siding, it drums up against the window, the heavy gush from the crotch in the roof then…

Your coffin was pine, a simple fact. Gravediggers in overalls brought sturdy shovels, worn with use and we stepped forward one by one: Heft of the handle in my hand. A spadeful of earth. On my last letter to the hospital I printed crazily, please forward. I told myself you might be going home, knew…

Goodbye people of Armero. Never again shall you dance nor drink ale at the tiendas. Next week are scheduled no first communions no more patio piñatas; no church bells toll no idlers stroll along the Calle Mariscal Sucre. Doña Flor, her customers, will serve no more and the spade of Don José will turn no…