Poetry

Each drop of rain is a fraction of a second. It rains all night. If the rain on one leaf could be heard it would be the sound of one life passing. The women nursing her mother thinks at night she sees what she is made of. She is so tired that even with her…

Sense the roosted owl in its bush, the field windy with crickets, the loose cantata of your bull-frogged pond. Beneath her fresh spine, the earth turns with skill Prepare to gather coat and hat, her toy, her growing body from the flesh-crushed hay, to hear the anger of her wakening in your well-meant arms.

While I dress someone sits at a table, someone in the country pulls water from a well. I rake furiously through my hair. As for the others, one moves a chair closer, one writes a love poem. *     *      * Though I have read of them, Rasputin and Houdini are dead. They like to sleep because…

The brownstone facade’s lit up and guarded; inside, a frayed partition. A child stuffs his pockets full of stolen turnips, and women gather together the folds of their white dresses. A man leans against the doorjamb, watching the black plumes file past. With one knee bent in a posture of strength he picks the youngest….

It is to sleep in barns among dumb beasts. It is to choose to breathe that farted air. It is to sleep encumbered, yet alone; to learn how many pounds of blanketing can’t keep you warm. It is to want the fire and watch the fire go out; it is to need the chemistry of…

That sound, the rip of root from soil like hair wrenched from a human scalp, again and again, I offer to silent air. Nearly naked, on my knees, I tunnel dirt with both hands, I grasp matters firmly, I pull them to light. There are villains, there are former friends, insidious grasses with their unseen…

1. Ulcerated tooth keeps me awake, there is such pain, would have to go to the hospital to have it pulled or would bleed to death from the blood thinners, but can’t leave Mother, she falls and forgets her salve and her tranquilizers, her ankles swell so and her bowels are so bad, she almost…

“Spain will surprise you.” — Suarez Tooting down the Gran Via, tossing out bundles of loose white leaflets, the campaign caravans roll. At nine in the evening leaflets snow on the heads and shoulders of Madrilenos at sidewalk cafes and cover their plates of hot, fried churros, while those in the paseo scuff through leaflets…

* For once she gets to go with big Cousin Beatie, who is starting her breasts. They’re at Uncle Charlie’s      farm. Grandma says, “Ach, Kind, what will they think of next, enahow, the town school? Hunt the butterflies, yet!” But Beatie says, “It’s an Assignment.” Mother says, “Now go, first.” But she hates the outhouse,…