Poetry

Now that mills control the snarlers, the backbiter winds who can guess where the waters have gone? Only we know—they pestled this Yankee’s thoughts to a gold-nugget juggernaut reel, footwork ground down to decimals smaller than thought: his profit shoved up the high-water mark on our masthead. At 40 he balances his millstone on a…

     Smash! All of us looked up from our roast lamb and new potatoes. Grandmother had dropped a plate. Or rather, as those of us who hadn’t been poking about in the watery creamed spinach had noticed, she had hurled her plate to the floor. Or rather, as a moment’s reflection taught us, she had in…

Children, she said, you are my children. What I mean to say is I’m going off in the woods to be alone. I want you to understand I’ve got to get away to think and touch my body with my own hands when I’m alone with no threats. You are my children and I was…

My vigils are unnecessary: you seldom stir. I am lucky to have such a child. Asleep, your breath is moist and carefully I undress you. Your flesh is precious, my only wealth. I caress you with the awe of a disciple. Your nakedness shines in the dark. Son— I am afraid of you. Growing bigger…

My mother, whom I know only from the outside, gave birth to four of us. I see my three sisters from the outside, but I cannot see myself from the outside, though I am of the four. Why is that? To stand alone in my dark store staring through my fenestras is to be singular…

A car in Seattle stops at a red light. A boy in Phoenix throws a rock through a window. A ball player kneels in the on deck circle. Any number of farmers aren’t milking cows. Somewhere a family of six is stuffed into a camper. A wave hitting any beach is followed by another. A…

Charlie Chan ponders the steamer trunk as wisps of seaweed fall from its lock . . . like the hair of a mermaid, thought his son: “Fugacious hints, pop; nothing here but cockroaches.” Detective Jones was impressed. Charlie was not. After all, Jimmy’s education cost seven murders Embarrassed, Jimmy mumbled: “Gee pop, this rash of…

I am conducting a writing workshop where I tell the students to put down in absolutely straight language something so present it flames from the page. Only the facts, I say, but literature, not journalism. Someone asks, may I work from a newsbreak at the scene on my transistor now, the police breaking down a…

The luxury of avoiding the inevitable disappears unharmed. *     *      * the greenness of the night is false to the green of the lawn he said. The thickness of the air is illegitimate if you live in my closet she purred. If you were to travel from this point to anywhere you wouldn’t be here he…