July 1, 1981
Onion Speaking
Translated from Hungarian. I’m simply skin all through, even when you slice crosswise, dice me cubewise. Make mincemeat of me! It’s still the nothing you’re cutting which I don’t […]
July 1, 1981
Gratitude
Translated from Hungarian. The state holidays’ stillness that drives you crazy is no different from that on Catholic Sundays. In loitering crowds people are even harder to take than […]
January 1, 1981
The Cracked Apple Tree
Right on that branch we saw the snowy owl the one time it arrived from Canada. Don’t cut it down! I know it’s past the age for bearing useful fruit; […]
January 1, 1981
Trillium
Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this—you are his daughter just as you are mine—I think your father’s having an affair. Last spring he started hiking in the woods, just as […]
January 1, 1981
Two Poems: The Woman in Black
No one would have seen the garden as he did, Heard the ululation, felt the violent throbbing, Posed the beautiful woman there in the little nothing, in black. To some […]
January 1, 1981
Two Poems: Sentimental Education
The man and woman went down to the green canoe To make their fateful incision upon the blue water, Steadying each other, when they entered, as upon a totally uncertain […]
April 1, 1980
Mrs Applebaum’s Sunday Dance Class
Her red pump tapping, her ankle-length gown slit at the knee, Mrs Applebaum lined us up while her husband tuned his piano, his bald head shining under the Temple’s big […]
April 1, 1980
Ode
Grandma stuffed her fur coat into the icebox. God Himself couldn’t convince her it wasn’t a closet. “God take me away this minute!” was her favorite Friday night prayer. Nothing […]
January 1, 1980
An Afterthought
By August, the clay was harder than the roads. When you drove off, I’d crouch in the strange noon exhalations of tomatoes and marigolds, chiseling at weeds. Nothing, it seems […]
January 1, 1980
Patchwork
When you unfurled that quilt, tremendous as weather over your minuscule living room, I traced the arabesques and stars, the braille of the meticulous stitch my fingers were too blind […]
October 1, 1979
aa
Lava which breaks up as it cools is called aa (ai a); lava which on cooling retains a smooth, river-like surface is called pahoehoe (pa ho * a ho- a). […]
October 1, 1979
Goodbye
1 My mother, poor woman, lies tonight in her last bed. It’s snowing, for her, in her darkness. I swallow down the goodbyes I won’t get to use, tasteless, with […]