Poetry

On the balcony of the tower I play my flute and watch The Spring rain. I wonder If I ever Will go home and see The tide bore In Chekiang River again. Straw sandals, an old Begging bowl, nobody Knows me. On how many Bridges have I trampled The fallen cherry blossoms?      — Su Man…

Suddenly there she was between us on the bed, the one third party and broken off relation I would least like to see share in our menage. Tight-lipped and glaring, she waits for me to do the introducing, own up to an old association, and with hanging head advise you not to be surprised by…

My uncle believed he had A double in another Universe right here at hand Whose life was the opposite Of his in all things — the man On the other side of zero. Sometimes they would change places. Not in dreams, but for a moment In waking, when my uncle Would smile a certain sly…

Dear Mother dear, Now this here’s an Edda, which in Icelandic means “greatgrandmother.” Snorri’s Skáldskaparmál: well, Aristotle’s Poetix it ain’t, not by a googolplex of parsecs, no ma’am; nor is the Gylfaginning any Iliad or Exodus. But our nothern temper (born of winter nights on the iced bridge, bred and borne on the vast namelessness…

Lovers passed us like movie stars. I am trembling but the terror of what I want to do is what beckons me to commit the crime. And every poster in town reveals my craven design. I look for you. There is only vertigo and bile in my throat. Fear: to crawl like a baby lost…

During my father’s walk, he went underground to pin down rails, pushed his back against cement walls when trains slammed by. The day’s hammering done, he headed for the circle of gray light. His father first went down into the tunnels and in his dotage bragged of breaking the 1911 strike by staring the men…

Table manners are so emotional: These knives reflect the teeth they imitate, Returning us to an uncultured state. The duke across from me is very tall, But not so tall as Dottie (my blind date).      Table manners are so emotional      These knives reflect the teeth they imitate. The seamstress next to me is very small…

When we were friends my words were colocynth seeds. Our lips were smothered with flies. — Translated by N. Aruri and Carl Senna

     for ms The shadows move on the wall. Rabbits and plums fill the space and the space fills her. It is too easy, he said, you must become the space. Take it inside you, the bootblack sky at night, the bony ocean rising at morning until there is nothing else. I will open the door,…