Poetry

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…

The air can still inspire a kind of tinny speech down their whole strung-out stagger. Late March, and they're still awed at the quick-freeze of winter. Like a madman jawing to nobody in sight, one's telling how he keeps getting kidnapped. Another's been hit-and-run, the hubcap's here to prove it, and a third, caught out…

This curve of the pitcher, thrust of the handle against my palm, this lip where I run my finger over the edge has no regard for function or for thirst. And what if it leaks? The imperfect body in its worn-out skin. Salim can fix it. Thirty years in his shop in the Old City…

Last fall our house was almost lost in a jungle of tumbled beanstalks. The air was green awhile. The light was yellow. But with the first frost the fat leaves turned brown, lost body, and, crashing softly to the ground, they kept me awake all night. They were too large to rake. And we couldn't…

A morning storm tosses at the windows like certain blossoms I know, and I hold a ruby jar to my eye. May this be a good year for them, in spring darkness the roadsides banked so with blossoms you might think the plow had just passed. Then, in latest August we'll check our places between…

What wrong is is mice Touched by the incorrect spell, A simple error really: Instead of horses, citizens Nickering over the fence. And it is what happened When the gentle brown rat, Giddy with incantations, Pulled on with black gloves The black hood of Inquisitor. And when the pumpkin, pale In the moonlight, sprouted Clumsy…