poetry

  The path was there before anyone human trod it A random formation in nature On the lofty cross the white-gowned angel lifted her heels At your finger’s touch the wreath of daisies turns to ashes shadow of a candlestick … Read More

  Why was my father wearing a blue formal jacket when it was so hot? It was summer in Oklahoma and over a hundred degrees. He wanted to know where he was. I explained that he could not return to … Read More

from “The Onset” by Robert Frost   The fated snow gathered dark song. Again, winter, overtaken by the end lets nothing heap long. Against a slender April rill flashes a birch, a clump of houses.

  An unremarkable corner café—he sits across from you at a table where he has waited patient as a ruin all your life. Nothing is more   than symbol, even your own body. +++++++He is your father,   he is … Read More

  Above the pecan grove, two curtains of rain, one turning purple, the other another of God’s interrogations, What makes you believe you are? Seen by the left eye, a hand. Seen by the right, a hand with a keyhole … Read More

  Sleek starlings flying low ++++over whitecaps on the bay ++++++++++remind me of Ortygia,   so far from where I am, ++++exactly where I wish ++++++++++to stroll the white stones   of Piazza Duomo, ++++stop in at the bookstore ++++++++++for … Read More

  It’s night in a subdivision whose name fills your ears with forest, and you’re sitting in a gazebo whose ivied trellises you’ve never seen in this shade of streetlight, and you’re busy being midwife to your bipolar, which rips … Read More

  Yes—cradle, then rain, sun, sand-box and rusted chain- link, baseball in the diamond by the playground, first base, first kiss, home plate, then heart- break, first house, black granite countertops, lilac centerpieces beside wedding plates, lit candles, red petals, … Read More

tr. by Peter Brown and Caroline Talpe   Dark, veiled lamps. A dark milk Filtering through the stretched Membrane. In the canal Motionless water shines. A fine Cover of mist diffuses The metallic sheen. A small Boat stands near the … Read More

Tr. from the French by Peter Brown and Caroline Talpe   The dawn instills its light into the blinds. I spread the slats and through the curved gap Observe the nearby buildings; a phantom fleet Of vessels lost within the … Read More

  It is sometimes necessary to walk barefoot along a moonlit riverbank on the sodden strip where water meets land to remind oneself that something in the mud remembers the stars.

  She who wields you gets a grip on her task and bears down to change one thing into another, like most everything used in the kitchen except for the plates, and even they hold what will be turned to … Read More