Poetry

When I grow up and you get small, then — (In Kaluza's theory the fifth dimension is represented as a circle associated with every point in spacetime)      —then when I die, I'll never be alive again?            Never. Never never?            Never never. Yes, but never never never?            No . . . not never…

trans. Italian Ruth Feldman Sir, starting next month Please accept my resignation And, if necessary, find a replacement for me. I leave a lot of uncompleted work, Whether from laziness or practical difficulties. I should have said something to someone, But no longer know what or to whom: I have forgotten. I should have given…

trans. Czech Ewald Osers Life taught me long ago that music and poetry are the most beautiful things on earth that life can give us. Except for love, of course. In an old textbook, published by the Imperial Printing House in the year of Vrchlicky's death, I looked up the section on poetics and poetic…

Only my enemy for all time, The abominable black queen, Has had nerve equal to mine In helpin her inept king. Inept and cowardly mine too — that's understood: From the very start he's crouched Behind his row of plucky pawns, Then fled across the chessboard, Askew, ridiculous, with little stumbling steps. Battles are not…

ALLEGRO NON TANTO It's getting dark. But don't turn on the light. I like to look at your eyes      in the dusk. Tell me then! How's Vienna? Do they still sell in the market bunches of lavender, that sweet fragrance of bygone loves from the end of the millenium? My mother used to put them…

When a child dies & it is newsworthy, the newsman comes & searches the crowd, our eyes for the delegate. One of us who can't wait to tell him before the heavily equipped one, one like a soldier, the cameraman, “It is a shame, he had his whole life ahead of him” or “He didn't…

Upstairs my husband types our wills, Pressing the keys with one finger. The sound makes eerie counterpoint, To all the birds, newly arrived. We have assigned our house and cats. We've looked at our insurance forms. The will must be typed perfectly. The drafts are growing at his feet. The typing stops, then starts again…

The street deserted. Nobody, only you and one poor dirt colored robin, fastened to its branch against the wind. It seems you have arrived late, the city unfamiliar, the address lost. And you made such a serious effort — pondered the obstacles deeply, tried to be your own critic. Yet no one came to listen….

The plumbing hums in the walls, white tiles hosed down for an hour now in the room next to ours. It is a copy of our bathroom, it shares the same veins & arteries in the invisible kingdom that exists inside of walls, behind mirrors & medicine cabinets. She sits upright in bed, her breasts…