Poetry

At first you will know her as yours only by a vague      contrariness That characterizes everyone else you love, among others      you and myself. You will see in her your marriage — that is there will be      more Of her mother than you thought you bargained for. You will find her set of mind, her…

Feeding the Birds Lured by unnatural feeding, by promises of plenty lavishly sprinkled and arced and scattered on cold weather, even the tufted titmouse has recently been known to loiter in the north here into winter. To feed or not to feed? The weather lady is careful, subtle, non-committal, anxious: “I’m sure more studies must…

I turn from the mirror to the garden where the December rose grows up orange above the wall. Soughing the grasses chinked in and threaded on its top — the wind displaces the still life of a great turf, like Durer’s. The great gray rain comes slanting down interrupting the museum in my eyes. Ars…

There is nothing like distance to create objectivity, and exclusion gives rise to counter values. —Ralph Ellison You greet me as “brother,” evocations of Sterling Brown and Ralph Bunche and Martin Luther King, Jr. who sat in your apartment after the Nobel ceremonial hectoring of Vietnam and world order, the great diameter of poverty. Your…

The women who clean fish are all named Rose or Grace. They wake up close to the water, damp and dreamy beneath white sheets, thinking of white beaches. It is always humid where they work. Under plastic aprons, their breasts foam and bubble. They wear old clothes because the smell will never go. On the…

To be alive to witness the snakes’ return to chase the papists and britons from Faerieland allowing Patrick’s sisters prayers to Druid gods: O pagan green! Mo Chraoibhin Cno! Siobhan, throw your ribbon round the last six. Braid them tightly, let them rest close on the velvet hills: O pagan green! Mo Chraoibhin Cno! And…

for Katherine Who knows why we talk of death this evening, warm beyond the measure of breath; it will be cool tomorrow for in the waters off Long Beach my brother’s ashes still collect the flowers of my mother and father, my sister dropped in the vase of a face they made of old places,…

(for Peppino) We loiter in the cobblestone alley, Beans, Clams, Yom-Yom and me smoking punk. Snip the wiry stem, trim the nubby end, scratch fire from a zipper, then pass the stink around. William Penn designed these city blocks, rectangular, brick, cross-hatched by alleys to prevent the spread of fire. So fire climbs down my…

There are times that falter like flowers in front of me, and times that take root in my chest like a change of heart. Certain kinds of foliage respond to me. Ferns, for example, are onlookers. There are also flowers that have died, only to be born again like old opinions. Perhaps it’s true that…