Poetry

Flute Song

Earth-spirit, wood-spirit, stone, father, Other, exposed root I said goodbye to by the river, where are you now? I fondle a glass eye. The eye reflects leaves, stars, galaxies. . . . Space was always my demon, the unreachable. From a black hole a wavering flute song, readable.

These Foolish Things

Bitter words whispered in a railroad station. A hair caught in a wallet’s web. Then: stroll the streets the way the poets did or some novel character musing after night’s revels, clutching a glove, a bit of silk, a talisman of disillusion. On Rue Huchette a gypsy breathes fire for spare change. Acrid whips of…

Cry For Comfort

The moon clouds over and is done. The Polish crones roam Mutual Tower spitting, polishing, sifting the trash for small gifts their grandchildren will turn into trash. Deep in the folds of the dark, some poor infant cries and cries for comfort and will not be calmed. Under the police siren’s wail it continues, clearing…

No Harm

1 Hey, Joe When my sister was in college whenever she wrote a paper she’d sit there picturing her teacher reading it collapsing with derision rushing to phone a friend — “Hey, Joe — ya gotta hear this one!” She’d go on about this fantasy to a friend of ours, who, around this time, got…

Lunch At Bruno’s

For you it was not much of a time, and you sat calmly waiting for it to end and dissolve you on into the walk through wind back to the office building; waiting for it to be past and just a dim memory of a long table of vaguely chuckling faces; waiting for this one…

Frost Flowers

Sap withdraws from the upper reaches of maples; the squirrel digs deeper and deeper in the moss to bury the acorns that fall all around, distracting him. I’m out here in the dusk, tired from teaching and a little drunk, where the wild asters, last blossoms of the season, straggle uphill. Frost flowers, I’ve heard…

El Zoo

for E.B., 1911-1979 We had to hurry to catch the open silver train that jingled the rim of the park. It was early, Sunday, summer-hazy, and we imagined we were the only ones around: only also the quick Catalonian boys — jumped from the red hibiscus hedge, and ran along the rail, and grabbed expertly…