Poetry

The pears fall hushed in the grass like fat pigeons. At first spotted careful as goldfish, a delicate bruise soon swallows their contours. On the boughs pears clench into yellow. (We ate slightly rotted pears as children, our tongues finding the sharp line between use & decay. Sometimes against the core, a worm like green…

I You have been dreaming for a long time of being me And it has made you so tired that sleep seems impossible so Suddenly you remain where you have been for a long time II During times in your life like this which were meant to be emblems For you to admire in the…

I’ll sit on this porch all night, my gin glass sweating, moths searing their eyes in the attractive light. I might be beautiful, I’ll need to be patient as the man on the train, who waves, who requires so much of me in passing. And the tracks receding, go gentian, violet, toward themselves; curative as…

It was not spring but spring seemed on its way That winter’s day that sun and wine had warmed For us, at leisure (one might almost say At peace), although the city’s sidewalks swarmed With people not too different from our own. But whether it was splendour or a slum Through which we walked, we…

I The noon dazes us, a brilliant back-beater. II Like hands slapping the water, ducks settle. III Shakedown time: fall trees fork over to the winds. IV Cornfields craze the wild crows, raucous on the fence. V This, this, this: like a stick against fence pickets.

Two straight days of sun and the idiot magnolia opens Boston, to cleanse it, pull the bullet of winter. I feel better. The bodies in the river thaw to neon fish, and clouds, sculling. There’s no telling when it will snow again. Blossoms are words in the long-winded streets: landed absences, long-distance calls for relief….

A burly country bumpkin, Bald as an autumn pumpkin, Sat – in his cups – at home. Some kind of fly, a-winging, Time and again kept stinging His unprotected dome. Each time the pest would land, The peasant smashed his hand Smartly against his head. Just as the bug would bite him, He tried in…

The blue breeze spins In near-still swirls Away from land. A gull lifts off The dull brown pier, Then works its wings And scales itself In sidelong glide Downwind, down wind Alone, black-tipped Wings its way up Through a soft scale Like a mild dream Balanced on sleep. Then, blood-beak poised On molecules Of sea…

Nights flex. You occur to me like morning’s sketchy moon: a surprising intimate. I lapse into you delirious as a drive into rain. Something you say is your hand, opening, inside me. You have to sleep alone to dream. . . Who can remember, counting backwards, the logic of snow. Leaves shake their fists, the…