December 2008

You bastards! It’s all sherbet, and folly   
makes you laugh like mules. Chances   
dance off your wrists, each day ready,   

sprites in your bones and spite not yet   
swollen, not yet set. You gather handful   
after miracle handful, seeing straight,   

reaching the lighthouse in...

to beat the froggiest   
of morning voices,   
   my son gets out of bed   
and takes a lumpish song   
   along—a little lyric   
learned in kindergarten,   
   something about a   
boat. He’s found it in   
   the bog of his throat   
before his feet have hit   
   the ground, follows   
its wonky melody down   
   the hall and...

She had a death in me, knees drawn up   
and my bowl and cloth rinsed through with her.   
As morning takes night, field closes the hare,   
and ay would burrow into her.   

Over the altar, catalpas rattle,   
shadow and bother the branch.   
Is this her...