Poetry

I’m going to give up my little tufts of grief clustered like weeds that edge the highway. I meant to drive until a town fanned light through the spired stalks. It may never happen. When you asked me to remember the first things, I told you a yellow house, the field behind it and the…

                 for Darren A grooved disc, a sliver of diamond, and the music rises; His darkened eyes, the ribbon of birth Cut: and the influential squawl Thrilling the air            —within which breath is drawn, Within which the race is to the quickest, Within which the race stories itself—                              rises;…

By coincidence, the summer of this pregnancy is the time when the scientists choose, once and for all, to find the Loch Ness monster. I read this morning they are using sonar, a useful tool, the obstetrician tells me, for gauging maturity by determining the size of the head: “So there won’t be any surprises.”…

     A round in three parts I When I was a child I had a governess whom I despised. We slept in the same room. She stole my dreams. I, in turn, stole coins from her leather purse. I threw them out the window. Since we lived in Canada and it was wintertime, there was snow…

Listen, those of you with bones, To the ceremonies of attention. My first son, age six, hit his brother, age three, With a baseball bat. When he had gone to bed I asked him, severely, to remember When he got hit with a baseball bat Two years ago. He started to cry And when I…

This headache musters in my skull slowly growing dense enough to screen your face, but your arms are sprouting like vines dropping in coils on the rug overgrowing the hidden backs of chairs while, from the dusky tangle of arms an occasional hand flashes. Your legs jam the doorways as rigid as fallen trees. I…

In this new town, I need to know      where to buy grain, grapefruits      by the case, a round of cheese. Neighbors offer a way of making      sauerkraut and soap.      But I mostly like the words. And those I meet who might be friends      have children now full grown. I want to meet whole generations. I…

1            The last thing I remember when I was a boy In the North winter I’d line the barrels up Sixteen or eighteen abreast across the pond And back off, way off, and hone my blades and paw At the ice, then skate full on, take soaring to the air And land on barrel…

There is always something outside that wants in: again tonight, I cannot back the car out of the garage for the animals that gather. I think of moving back to the city, where not once did I choke on the spray of wild skunk on my path to the dryer, not once did I intercept…