Poetry

But what of those things we left In closets: pants and shirts too small; Notebooks filled with deliberate, looped Script; tedious games we were proud To admit we loved? As a child I loved Everything! On the back porch, housed Beneath a table, I sang the same song Over and over until my voice gave…

El dia del fin del mundo. . . yo grabaré mis iniciales en la corteza de un tilo sabiendo que eso no sirve para nada. — Jorge Teillier The day on which the world ends will of course be different in each place. Here it is raining, there snowing. Here the night shields the now…

Under the bed I found your old sock Like a bird peeking out The sleeve of my shirt. I plucked it up. So sad, little foot, Now it's in the pocket Of my coat for luck. Later in the earth I'll feed its nest, Worms a plenty In my good dark suit.

The freezer holds only a few things. Fewer as it makes its ermine muff of frost, as it comes time, and overtime, to defrost. The shelves hold a few things. At the back on the lowest slab with the margarine, my withered corsage, red carnation: I dressed in black, and went on the bus to…

These people in the future won't be like us. Oh no, they'll be kinder and their foreheads will bulge past their noses with wisdom. They'll have our pictures of course, although they won't be snapshots as we know them but little holographs, three-dimensional photos, so when one takes one from his pocket it will look…

I want to say night is a flaming tuba but that is not right. In flame and tuba we do not see deer migrating through the pine forest or the full moon sitting in a fat chair reading your latest book of poems. We do not see the accidental death of two teenagers on the…

Like jewelry his bicycle gleams on my porch, attached to his hands, carried a flight before he even knocks and it wheels its majesty into my kitchen. As we talk of the torch I flick my lighter. Later we fly to the park. He wheels away down streets and sometimes closer, asking how far, how…

blue wing      I found you a monarch flown from his route along the meridian into my tarred driveway where is your mate who was always with you and is not used to solitary travel I took you for an heir of blueness a passenger of seasons I took you for orchid the pupa wakes to…

In her studio an artist begins to paint a portrait of Saint Francis in his beast-colored robe. He is bending slightly forward preaching to the birds. With short vertical strokes she paints the birds white, the mountains blue. She outlines the features of his face, thin lips, high cheekbones, a golden halo. She paints the…