Goosey, goosey, goosey, lay a golden egg for me!
Goosey, goosey, goosey, I want one for my tea!
I haven't had an egg since breakfast,
And now it's half-past three,
So goosey, goosey, goosey, lay a golden egg for me.
Goosey, goosey, goosey, lay a golden egg for me!
Goosey, goosey, goosey, I want one for my tea!
I haven't had an egg since breakfast,
And now it's half-past three,
So goosey, goosey, goosey, lay a golden egg for me.
From here into the north, the ways are
dry. Yellow grass,
thirst in the roots. In the hearts.
It's all simple, but false.
When I try to think history,
the enormous vertebrae
of the dinosaur behind the purple beeches
in Invalidenstrasse,
Bismarck in marble,
and Benn, a nameplate on Bozener, lifeless.
In the depths of the bunkers
on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin
are the shoes of Hitler's favorite horse.
Profile of power: armor and helmet.
Tomb of a millionaire,
A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,
Place of the dead where they spend every year
The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars
For upkeep and flowers
To keep fresh the memory of the dead.
The merchant prince gone to dust
Commanded in his written will
Over the signed name of his last testament
Twenty-five thousand dollars be set aside
For roses, lilacs, hydrangeas, tulips,
For perfume and color, sweetness of remembrance
Around his last long home.
lonely as four cherries on a tree
at night, new moon, wet roads
a moth or a snowflake
whipping past glass
lonely as the red noses of four clowns
thrust up through snow
their shine four whitened panes
drawn from imagined memory
lonely as no other lives
touching to recorded water
all objects stare
their memories aware
lonely as pain
recoiling from itself
imagining the cherries
and roses reaching out
The scent of pig is faint tonight
as the lime trees hang their heads against gradations of blue,
looking at the lone suitcase in the middle of the farmyard
with a sense of solidarity. Also forgotten.
Its owner never once looked up at them and exclaimed
I was still soft-fingered when I planted you.
In the plane, her gaze rests on a flock of cloud-birds,
pinkish purple with elongated necks, rests
on the plane’ s wing-tip colored pink by the sun.
Her head is heavy with this childhood cargo,
thanks for bringing that
to our attention
she said the first time
to my response to a history text
about a famous painting
of the Battle of Quebec
that never mentioned the French
and only mentioned Indians twice,
once as nuisances, once
as the noble savage
kneeling by the dying
English general
I'm in a wild neglected niche,
Mojave joins the sublime ditch.
Out from Lake Meade where deserts burn
As heat surrounds a cooking urn.
These fiery winds may take their toll
Infernos' depths; devil's punch bowl.
Bright ochre sands like burnished chrome
Reflects the sun, earth's nascent home.
Grand Canyon's wild. So am I.
Wild donkeys thrive with coyotes nigh.
Cactus water, at least, is clean
When hunger gnaws, there's mesquite beans.
I forgot to tell you it's almost time to go.
The sun has distilled its particular worn essence
And the glittering trout is flipped on the bow.
A man asks me what time it is. I don't know.
I have emptied my purse and wept in the presence
Of onlookers. I forgot to remember to go
Before eleven, when the steely arrow
Shot swimming to its underneath, tense
As a stream of salmon in reverse below
As we sipped and mingled,
regaled
with oldfangled
canapés and beguiled,
or entertained at least, by gargled
oldies, I disengaged
and angled
across grass tenderly groomed,
past where electric tiki torches gleamed,
and, alone, gazed,
now truly beguiled,
at my hosts’ grand
expensive vista, mortgaged,
yes, and, yes, remortgaged.
A low gold
moon glowed
against a plush black sky gauzed,
even filigreed,
with stars. Gowned
in old-growth oaks glazed
It is not 1937 for long. A clump of ash trees and a walk
Down the the boathouse: inside linen is tacked up
In a long blank mural; the children sit on the wings
Of the dry dock, and then, over the water in a circle
Of rowboats, the aunts and uncles wait while
At their center the projectionist, Jean Renoir,
On a cedar raft, casts silhouettes of rabbits, birds,
And turtles for the sleepy children. Corks
Come out of old bottles, it is a few minutes past sunset
And, now, a swimmer beside the raft looks
