Poetry

A poem about a honeymoon and a stranded giant Pacific chiton

I called it being good. I called it being careful. I called it small red squirrel, copper tail in pine trees. Unexpected warm breeze. How I moved through the house always, as if at night, to keeping the sleeping still. I called my shame a secret. I called it fear. I called it I should …

This morning, I fill the sink with cold water and vinegar, swirl flavorless strawberries until my hand grows numb. I am trying now to save things, even pesticide-laden fruit, even us. It is only October and last nightit snowed an ugly snow, thin and resentful. I hated it. It was nothing like that surprise snow …

after Edward Hooper You look anxious on the edgeof that bed, back straight, knuckles curled over the footboardlike you’re ready to standand leave. But you just got here—the bed, still made. After a long car ride, I like to lie down, feel the cool cotton fluff of a pillow against the back of my neck.Why …

did not disappear slowly, as some rivers do, paved over in a cracked laminate of asphalt and concrete, its flow dwindling into a thin necklace of puddles edged in phosphorous green. No. It just slipped away in the night.We walked out onto the bridge and peered to where weeds lay flat and lank as wet …

Once we had a flag we were proud of. In this land we’ve lost our searchfor a place to lay down the pain.The flag waving makes our hearts sink. Half-longing, half-dreading, we recite prayers should another day appear and find us choked with fear. Pleading. They whip us. Sing from the heart! But the heart …

a golden shovel with Adam Zagajewski What came to us sounded like mystic music:at first, a chorus of Gregorian monks heardfiling past the juniper tree, though now we can say with certitude that the music we heard came through pipes. You heard the first hum in the bathroom—it wasstartling, the way things are when you’re …

We ate hair every year my grandparents visited, slick with the odor of a living force. For good luckI chewed strands & swallowed. After Koung Koungdied, I learned of black moss stripped from the roots of grass, earth left exposed to the wind, land turnedinto desert. In the high desert where I live, eyes light …

The Jewish New Year and my birthday converged in one week;I was 5,718 years younger than the world!The day before was startlingly beautifulas though summer had never sweltered, as though rains had neverpersisted. My cousin and I chatted on the plaza of the libraryuntil she left to register voters, and my friends collected meso we …

and then the “you” wrote a poem in response, I wanted to writeyou (the real you) a poem about the person you praisein your book’s very last poem—the mentor who seemedperfectly in control of his life in a way you sense you maynever be in control of your own. Your homage bestowsgratitude and admiration. And …