October 1, 1985
A Summer Afternoon an Old Man Gives Some Thought to the Central Questions
Grass grows out of every sidewalk crack. Briars have taken the garden. The arteries of the old dog harden almost audibly. The basement door is broken and the mice are […]
October 1, 1985
One of Those Rare Occurrences on a City Bus
For exactly sixty seconds riding to work approaching a traffic light going to green he understands everything. I mean from the outer curling edge of the universe to quarks, the […]
October 1, 1985
Mecanic on Duty at All Times
The license plate was another state and year. The man’s slow hands, as if they had no part in whatever happened here, followed the hollows and hills of his broad […]
October 1, 1985
Stopping to Look at a Crèche in a Jewelry Store Window He Comes across a Question of Curious Import
Burros, taken to Death Valley by prospectors and lost in the desert, by eating the few grasses and other green things that grew there, caused the death of wild goats […]
October 1, 1985
One Day a Woman
One day a woman picking peaches in Georgia lost her hold on the earth and began to rise. She grabbed limbs but leaves stripped off in her hands. Some children […]
April 1, 1983
Now She Sleeps
Now she sleeps, my little one. I can give at least this present tense, an active mood. Among all the males of the line I’d hoped there was one who […]
April 1, 1983
Fractures
tacitae per amica silentia lunae — Virgil I Tacit night. This truth is not more friendly than moon-struck silence: I am traced and ghosted by a face I have never […]
April 1, 1983
Engraved in Plural Voices
I In the church-place I remember they pulled words out of their long sockets and prayed Help me, God wheezing and coughing and groaning so that they might not hear […]
April 1, 1983
Eclipse
And since death must be the Lucina of life . . .* — Sir Thomas Browne She had her mother’s way of looking but she does not see the light […]
April 1, 1983
Effigy
The days are not divided. I watch, agnostic father and afraid. Your mother’s hand gently strokes your face, shapes the setting wax, as light as winds in summer on contours […]
July 1, 1979
Classicism
The nights are very clear in Greece. When the moon is round we see it completely and have no feeling.
July 1, 1979
Gnostics on Trial
Let us make the test. Say God wants you to be unhappy. That there is no good. That there are horrors in store for us if we do manage to […]