January 1, 1984
Speaking of Sounds
For Holley Haymaker So you like that muffled echo, like a runlet’s faraway drizzle into a cavern’s inky pool, which is the steeped coffee’s little fall in the pot? And […]
January 1, 1984
Letter to a Cousin on His Twentieth Deathday
I After weeks of tasks, petty chores for petty gains, I want to write like Milton did. Some vast music well beyond cluttered sight should swell my heart, engage this […]
October 1, 1983
Without Its Skin
From the Japanese. Without its metal skin a plane cannot endure air’s least resistance; without water skin, the airy cherry blossom cannot begin its long floating journey. Skin touching […]
October 1, 1983
When Your Hand Shakes, When Your Eye’s Meat
When your hand shakes, when your eye’s meat In the lonely butcher shop of the mirror; When every street’s a corridor In Home Town Jail; when you fail, and then […]
October 1, 1983
Around Its Knees
From the Japanese. On the Tsientang River near Hangchow Bay, south of Shanghai, soars a giant, stone, eight-faced pagoda offering walks ’round its knees to workers, soldiers, families. Massive […]
October 1, 1983
When Your Eyes Meet, When Your Hand Shakes
When your eyes meet, when your hand shakes The hand of the salesman who sold you the hat; When you land on Go to Jail And everybody laughs; when someone’s […]
January 1, 1983
The Last Installment
Remember our lamp, its frowzy Victorian hat of a shade? Nights in that drafty stained-glass parlor I’d read aloud in the fringed glow while you sewed. We might have been […]
January 1, 1983
Net
When they step out from apartments facing the park a little awning goes a ways with them. Carpet massages their soles. A uniform stands ready to call them a cab. […]
January 1, 1983
The Lines
Jean answers. Bob isn’t home. But would I like Arlene to say hello? Great. Prime-time long-distance rates and I have to wait while Arlene decides if the receiver is something […]
January 1, 1983
Penelope’s Despair
Translated from Greek. It wasn’t that she didn’t recognize him in the dim light of the fire, it wasn’t his disguise, the beggar’s rags. No, there were clear indications: the […]
January 1, 1983
Achilles after Death
From the Greek. He’s so tired of it all. What good is glory to him now? Enough. He’d known his enemies and his friends—his supposed friends—only too well; knew […]
January 1, 1983
Most Glow / Vessel
1 In the hickburg airport, a crucifix once past the guards and bleepers became an unscabbarded dagger at a throat. You bet they check every metal mote now!, so a […]