For StellaI dreamt we were already there.Some things were right and some were not.And somehow Tuesday was Wednesdaywas Monday again.I slept then wokeand then fell asleep again and when I slept againI dreamt we were already there.Things were right some and were some not.My father died yesterday, she said. Yesterday, some things were and. Today …
The pirouette, ensconced: you snap your toes into their predetermined clamps and spin (and this is how you keep from letting go).Precise control imbues adagioswith patience like you never had for him. The pirouette gets lost in snapping toesuntil you spot the dizzy, fern-green glow above the mezzanine and focus in,and this is how you …
Pubs, old friends pop up like detonated safes, and rivers are really moving but look still, like old girlfriends. Rides, places to live rent free,these arrive and change with my moods. I wear a tie on the bus and divine the secrets of my associates: This one knows we are not equals, this one cannot …
Don’t be foolish. No, be foolish. Each of these trees was once a seed.Look down the road till it’s all mist and fumes: Of course your journey is impossible.It’s stupidly hot for September and yet here’s an eddy, a gust, something to stir youas the high leaves of the walnut are stirred, as fine droplets …
yes colossus of a hundred eyes overseerof the universal other I live for others’ living yes yes & I die deaths of others’ dying misdeeds allotments & debts accruances’ worth apportioned to measure’s gain yes I am bound in expromissionindentured myself to the other’s due/ the other’s release mine & within my borders/ vulgar topographer/ …
have retired now that the circus has closed, to their watercolors& bowling leagues, their tusk-dug rose gardens, their record collections, their calligraphy— say one hasbegun a letter to you, peacock feather gripped in the beautiful gray coilsof its trunk, & she dips it in the inkwell & begins darling, I have my dead &I have …
found in comments on my father’s recovery site 1 Be easy, chemo. Your sun-infused great idea . Highlighting yes Oh, how you guys warm the desert. I know you, you a monitor light’s thanks . Best world glad as it’s set aflame again. 2 Be- gown- ed, we stay with you, human torch regime, sunpuddled …
You who sleep in ragweed and attic, draw your red tongue over asphalt,eucalyptus, aloe, snowmelt. You who struck the matchbelow the mattress, illuminatedthe imagination of soldier and child,warped the faces of dolls, whom I saw devour a car whole on the interstate.Destroyer of villages, the Cuyahoga, magnificent golden temples of Budapest—wake! Every bent stalk of …
Or sometimes watched drifting with the leaves, some last confetti of yellow or brown. Or it existedthe way the juncos huddled beneath the thistle feeder in winter, in the way the clouds spilled waterin May to soak the ground. Once we found itin the attic in a steamer trunk, and another timewe closed it in …
When we first moved in together, there was somewherea dull blade of moon and expansive fields like inland seas.And surely clouds were visible to many, a distant carapace of sky, and snow tapered along fences into sharpness.And what of the honking horns in cities and bus doors whooshing open then closed? And lovers gazing at …