Poetry

On the second day of Three Mile Island Annie and I drove southwest at sunset to visit her family in Connecticut. The sun was large and red and hazy and it was easy to imagine the sun was angry. Traffic going our way was fairly thick — all heading more or less toward Pennsylvania. Lemmings,…

           translated by the author and Robert Pinsky I walk those corridors by torchlight Hearing water trickle down onto broken slabs. Deep into the mountain. In niches, busts of my friends, Their eyes are of marble. Only the light and shadow Throw over their faces a brief sour grimace of life. So, further into the…

Yes, we all have those spots of time, as Wordsworth said, when we see the deeper reality that’s always waiting. For example, I stood beside a red Volkswagen in the rain feeling the wind on my face, as wind is frequently      a conductor of various profound intimations, I saw evergreen trees reflected in the rear…

In the first dream she is the enemy — spangled in love’s armor, wearing the sweater she knitted for him, and she looks prettier than in the photo you discover in his bottom drawer that puts her in perspective — all scowls and squinting at the sun, unflattering as he has captured her. Possession is…

The train is crossing a river in a city where everything’s a shade of brown, though it’s June, but when I look out a pleasure boat tilts by, making a wake that resembles a triangular scarf: flat and silver, following the boat like a thing. Looking: it’s optional and safe the sense with a lid…

negotiate their way across a frozen lake, careful not to touch, careful not to upset each other’s balance. The house is quiet; I have been thinking about them all evening and now, my window spills across the ice the narrow path of light they are walking on. It’s hard to see but I think the…

She’s supposed to be land clearing Heaping the brush to be burned in first snow But the pale yellow ghost of the tall Summer grasses she sweeps down Is instead caught in her hand And placed that way in a kitchen vase Showing a warmth to last us thru winter

My envy of people my age or older whose parents both are living frequently, alas, takes the form of contempt. First, the parents are old. Old and bald and fat and slow or old and ill or at the very least mothers like what their daughters fear themselves to become, fathers blinking owlish at the…

Put no trust in nothing, not even yourself Yesterday was like summer, today snow blows I’ve walked six miles with an axe and wedge Actually make my living near a river that runs bright water Home to a small hawk found mangled in the woodshed Eyes opening, I load my rifle but won’t use it…