Poetry
Summer 1996
The Middle Years
We memorized each other’s eyes before Saigon, casting for bass after dark, hearing the splashand battle in the shallows. Driving back, we watched hawksglide over piñon and spruce and disappear. […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
The Winter They Bombed Pearl Harbor
All winter peacocks screamed, strutting the sameslow pose. At dawn, we smashed the ice with hammers, dumped pots of boiling water steaming into troughs for beaks of preening peacocks. They […]
Poetry
Summer 1996
The Winter before the War
Shiny as wax, the cracked veneer Scotch-tapedand brittle. I can’t bring my father back. Legs crossed, he sits there brash. with a private’s stripe, a world awayfrom the war they […]
Poetry
Summer 1988
Living on Hardscrabble
Cattle caught on open plains freeze every year. If blizzards give warning, we round up steers and herd them home until the snows blow over. They roam on winter wheat […]
Poetry
Summer 1988
When It Seemed Easy
We hummed sad country songs all summer, the yellow glow of the jukebox making our tans look jaundiced. Girls who danced came out at night like stars of Austin spinning […]
Poetry
Autumn 1986
Retrievers in Winter
Dogs paddle back one by one,white fangs baredaround green and blue mallards, noses held highlike butlers, or as if the duckssmell bad. They trot to our bootsand deliver, and shake,a […]
Poetry
Autumn 1986
Tracking on Hardscrabble
I squat with a riflejammed after the only shot all day.Mesquite twigs silk-screen shadeon caliche. Riding hardscrabble,a man keeps his rifle loaded.You don’t get many shots out here. Sometimes five, […]