June 2012

In the barn demoted to garage,
the ax in a cherry stump can’t be budged.

Daylight perforates siding despite
the battered armor of license plates—

corroded colors, same state: decay,
their dates the only history

of whoever tilled the soil
and left, as a welcome,...

How should I now recall
the icy lace of the pane
like a sheet of cellophane,
or the skies of alcohol

poured over the saltbox town?
On that stony New England tableau,
the halo of falling snow
glared like a waxy crown.

Through blue frozen lots
my giant parents...

In goes the cafeteria worker in her hairnet.
In goes the philosophy teacher
explaining the theory of eternal
return, and Anton Stadler with his clarinet,
still owing money to Mozart. In
goes Mozart. Everyone flopped into the creel
of the happy fisherman, everyone eaten.
Every river is...