Poetry

Why do the people running from the bomber slow down, look back, and up? Instinct, is it, or a need to glimpse death before it picks you off? What I am seeing must be correct though I can't believe my eyes. Yet, this is docudrama: Poland, WW II, the exodus from village to Warsaw. Surely…

Next to the U.N. compound on the Hill of Evil Counsel where Abraham camped with Isaac on their way to Moriah, Burt has his business. The path the sun makes each day in its blind circle hasn't changed. Except that the sky has less space below. Gift shop and restaurant and goat-hair tents like a…

Freedom is not to be proved but is rather a postulate of action. Thus excellent Berdyaev, who has meant much to me, although I must shake my head and make a face when he undertakes to explain the Holy Ghost. We are unbelievers, Cindy, which may be (I regularly think it is) our misfortune. But…

There is, for me, no such thing as the calm acceptance of desire. — David McAleavey Here on the sill my nature display: one dried rose, crow feathers, a cicada shell (too small a house for the body). One candle, wax curled from when last the wick was lit; you were illuminated by the flickering….

Food spoils in this endless summer faster than we can eat it but we sniff at the meat because we can't be sure. We are learning distrust. Our neighbor cut down the pine tree when we were out because it blocked his light and the roots were splitting the side of his house. There is…

if I collected stamps, your letters would be of more value      to me the stamp is wonderful a Chinese junk with turquoise sails floating on a sea of plumed grass seven tiny figures on the deck below a platform where two more stand striking a drum alternately beneath red pennants the letter itself bothers me…

(For Jeffrey Atlas) High in a tower above Manhattan We talked about the end of communal life. You said, “The incorporation of America At best makes nomads of us all, at worst Spare parts for machines.” I said, “The neutron bomb Is the quintessence of our age, buildings Must stand, people can be replaced.” You…

The widows forget nothing. When they open a window, the wind is the breath of their anger knocking things over. The bare stones blind them. If they close their eyes a dark space enters. They keep it under their eyelids when they sleep. In the morning the space surprises them in their beds. It stands…

First you close your eyes. Then you hold your breath. Then, when it gets too heavy to hold, you let it go. And it drops to the floor like a stone. But without a sound. And then your mother comes to the door and calls you, saying, “Come out here this instant! Your breakfast is…