What’ ll it be?
Roast beef on rye, with tomato and mayo.
Whaddaya want on it?
A swipe of mayo.
Pepper but no salt.
You got it. Roast beef on rye.
You want lettuce on that?
No. Just tomato and mayo.
Tomato and mayo. You got it.
… Salt and pepper?
No salt, just a little pepper.
You got it. No salt.
You want tomato.
Yes. Tomato. No lettuce.
No lettuce. You got it.
… No salt, right?
Right. No salt.
You got it. Pickle?
No, no pickle. Just tomato and mayo.
And pepper.
In simmer when the hay was mawn,
And corn wav'd green in ilka field,
While claver blooms white o'er the lea,
And roses blaw in ilka beild;
Blythe Bessie, in the milkin-shiel,
Says, I'll be wed, come o't what will;
Outspak a dame in wrinkled eild,
O' gude advisement comes nae ill.
I try to think of the cup of a hand,
of legs in a tangle, and not the thistle
though even it, purpled, spiking away,
wants to be admired, wants to say, whistle
a little for me. O every little thing wants
to be loved, wants to be marked by the cry
A fall over rock,
Metal answering to water,
Is the seal of this spot;
A land trodden by music
And the tune forgot.
Of a region savage,
The territory that was broken,
Silver gushed free;
And earth holy, earth meek shall receive it
In humility.
It is an afternoon toward the end of August:
Autumnal weather, cool following on,
And riding in, after the heat of summer,
Into the empty afternoon shade and light,
The shade full of light without any thickness at all;
You can see right through and right down into the depth
Of the light and shade of the afternoon; there isn’ t
Any weight of the summer pressing down.
I could pick anything and think of you —
This lamp, the wind-still rain, the glossy blue
My pen exudes, drying matte, upon the page.
I could choose any hero, any cause or age
And, sure as shooting arrows to the heart,
Astride a dappled mare, legs braced as far apart
As standing in silver stirrups will allow —
In the land of milk and cream delivered early
and daily, and always in glass bottles, we care
about good grooming and, of course, news
of slurs and curs... Can it really be that home
becomes a place to be stranded?
“I don’t see a single storm cloud
anywhere in the sky, but I can sure smell rain,”
out on the edge of Crawfordsville, Indiana,
where the answers and questions become identical
as evil twins.
I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
`Those breasts are flat and fallen now
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'
`Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.
Creo que si... I believe
it will rain
tomorrow... I believe
the son of a bitch
is going into the river...
I believe All men are
created equal — By your
leave a leafy
shelter over the exposed
person — I’ m a
believer creature
of habit but without
out there a void of
pattern older
older the broken
pieces no longer
Squinting through eye-slits in our balaclavas,
we lurch across Washington Square Park
hunched against the wind, two hooded figures
caught in the monochrome, carrying sacks
of fruit, as we’ ve done for years. The frosted, starch-
stiff sycamores make a lean Christmas tree
seem to bulk larger, tilted under the arch
and still lit in three colors. Once in January,
