My father and I lie down together.
He is dead.
We look up at the stars, the steady sound
Of the wind turning the night like a ceiling fan.
This is our home.
I remember the work in him
Like bitterness in persimmons before a frost.
And I imagine the way he had fear,
The ground turning dark in a rain.
Now he gets up.
And I dream he looks down in my eyes
And watches me die.
Immersed
we don’ t
ask
who entered
whose stream.
Take
my hand there
is no
line no
bridge only
fond
foolishness —
the bread
crumbs I
bring you
in
morning —
they float
on the
surface
water with
two
violins
un-
strung like
the silent
song
on your
lips soft
as the
same
hands I
crushed to
keep
you from
death.
Robbin, a bobbin, the big-bellied Ben,
He ate more meat than threescore men;
He ate a cow, he ate a calf,
He ate a butcher and a half;
He ate a church, he ate a steeple,
He ate the priest and all the people.
Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben,
He ate more meat than fourscore men;
He ate a cow, he ate a calf,
He ate a butcher and a half;
He ate a church, he ate a steeple,
He ate the priest and all the people!
A cow and a calf,
An ox and a half,
A church and a steeple,
And all the good people,
And yet he complained that his stomach wasn't full.
Curtains drawn back, the door ajar.
All winter long, it seemed, a darkening
Began. But now the moonlight and the odors of the street
Conspire and combine toward one community.
These are the rooms of Robinson.
Bleached, wan, and colorless this light, as though
All the blurred daybreaks of the spring
Found an asylum here, perhaps for Robinson alone,
O little-know facts — how Robinson attracts them!
Pilgrims rocked ashore here, before Plymouth Rock.
The word scrimshaw is of unknown origin.
The stock name of the archaic two-lane main road? Route 6A. Really
it’ s Old King’ s Highway.
Some facts are useless: the paper bag was invented in Dennis.
Some facts are not: Wellfleet’ s town clock sings out ship’ s time.
19th century Americans observed only three holidays. The Fourth of
July was one.
O witty aperçus — how Robinson accrues them!
I must admit to this outright theft.
Before the crickets could impede me,
I reached outside my window
to grab as much of Andalusia as
I could in the palm of my hand.
I took the evening's silver
from the olive trees, the yellow slumber
from the lemons, the recipe for gazpacho.
I made a small incision in my heart
and slipped in as much as my left
and right ventricles could hold.
I reached for a pen and a piece of paper
to ease-out the land into this poem.
I closed the small incision in my heart
Rock a-bye, baby,
On the tree top,
When the wind blows,
The cradle will rock.
When the bow breaks,
The baby will fall,
Down will come baby,
Cradle and all!
Despite that you
wrote your name
and number
on its fuselage
in magic marker
neither your quiet
hours at the kitchen
table assembling
it with glue
nor your choice of
paint and lacquer
nor your seemingly
equally perfect
choice of a seemingly
breezeless day
for the launch of
your ambition
nor the thrill
of its swift ignition
nor the heights
it streaks
nor the dancing
way you chase
beneath its
dot
Someday our buried life will come to this:
a shaft of sunlight touching the Etruscan
surfaces, the basin still intact
as if awaiting hands. How many
centuries sequestered is an expert's guess,
you tell me. I admire the tiles
some craftsman spiraled in the ceiling's dome
detailing Neptune's beard. Or someone's.
What will they say of us, who have no home
(we like to say) but one another? When they pry
our hearts apart and excavate the sum,
is that the place we'll lie? Where the words lie?
