Poetry

I cannot worry about what lies beneath the surface, so I walk into the fragile dusk, breaking the backs of field mice still asleep under the snow. The sunlight that does not reach me illuminates the distance between this world and God’s, where winter is simply the white of perfect concentration. I would like to…

We came off the Ozarks at night, Dreaming the motels we stayed in, Skirted the snow and parked On the edge of the Grand Canyon. Now, it is the tinder of border towns, Greened ruins, locked headlands, Cow-guilted fields and scattered squalls Scouting for winter. Honey thins Out of the blood. At four o’clock The…

On the inside edge of suburbs nothing approaches bear. Laying rubber around a one-way block, trying to find a man named Evanshevski, I stop to ask a man if he is him. He promises to help. Nothing approaches bear. No way anyway to go for help. We drive around, trying to find a one-way girl…

When I arrive      and Roethke rumbas      in a green      fedora.      Hands are strangers      large as pockets      light. Mine float.      They scratch my groin.      I scatter      punctuation. Rain. Another, quieter room.      Allen Ginsberg holding court.      ancient poet luminary      poor as tinder.      The threadbare coat, the light.      Shining through thin threads.      I’m glad you’ve come      he says,…

The machines were vacant. Was a trumpet beginning a single slow turn? How could the storm frame itself? Find the space between any two stones And measure your travels from that distance. The inside is too fast to stand against And not, move, you will not. Nothing more narrow. We were not told until after…

Trains in the night. In the morning waves reach beyond water. Animal faces appear at the window muttering cries from the pen. Fences fastened in dirt topple over. Unafraid the woman walks away from the man she loves, the man who does not love her. She is surprised at her own bravery, decides over and…

An accidental landscape could Close down the approach Sketched in glass, aureate Gravings of soft tropical Foliage, produce heaped on The dock, these islands Are slow. Pale oaken oars Pull each wave apart. A various harbor goes Out draped by narrows.

I have this witch’s dream sitting in a wicker chair in a green garden our friends are sitting there I have on a satin purple slip I love the way it feels on my bare hot skin and god am I even in my inner ear the small of my back      don’t tell me I…

The day lets go its frozen pose of blue and grey. Snow falls, white on white, wrapping the town in its cocoon. Such calm in snow. The air no longer hungers for each step. My puffs of breath lead me to the Common, its web of stone paths just covered. I scan the scene. No…