We don’ t get any too much light;
It’ s pretty noisy, too, at that;
The folks next door stay up all night;
There’ s but one closet in the flat;
The rent we pay is far from low;
Our flat is small and in the rear;
But we have looked around, and so
We think we’ ll stay another year.
Will you read my little pome,
O you girls returnèd home
From a summertime of sport
At the Jolliest Resort,
From a Heated Term of joys
Far from urban dust and noise?
You I speak to in this rhyme,
You have had a Glorious Time
Swimming, golfing, bridging, dancing,
Riding, tennising, romancing,
On the springboard, on the raft —
You’ ve been often photographed.
You might as well take a razor
to your pecker as let a woman in your heart.
First they do the wash and then they kill you.
They flash their lights and teach your wallet to puke.
They bring it to you folded — if you see her
stepping between the coin laundry and your building
over the slushy street and watch the clothing steam,
you can’ t wait to open up the door when she puts
OUR PATRON OF FALLING SHORT,
WHO BECAME A PRAYER
What seemed a mystery was
in fact a choice. Insert bird for sorrow.
What seemed a memory was in fact
a dividing line. Insert bird for wind.
Insert wind for departure when everyone is
standing still. Insert three mountains
burning and in three valleys a signal seer
seeing a distant light and a signal bearer
sprinting to a far-off bell. What seemed
a promise was in fact a sigh.
Thousands of planes were flying and then
they stopped. We spend days moving our eyes
across makeshift desks, we sit on a makeshift floor;
we prepare for almost nothing that might happen.
Early on, distant relations kept calling.
Now, nothing: sound of water
tippling a seawall. Nothing: sparks
lighting the brush, sparks polishing the hail,
the flotsam of cars left standing perfectly still.
Thud of night bird against night air,
there you are on the porch, swath
of feathers visible through the glass,
Look, above the creek, hummingbirds in the trumpet vine.
Not too close, wait. See the green blurs
stitching the leaves?
Here at the edge of the millennium
I don’ t imagine
you’ d call them anything as archaic as angels.
Twice through my bedroom window
I’ ve seen the horned owl drop from the oaks to panic
the rabbit in my neighbor’ s backyard.
Last night he paced for an hour across the top
of the cage, scrutinizing
the can of water, the mound of pellets,
turning his genius to the riddle
of the wire, while under him
the rabbit balled like a fat carnation in the wind.
We have all seen them circling pastures,
have looked up from the mouth of a barn, a pine clearing,
the fences of our own backyards, and have stood
amazed by the one slow wing beat, the endless dihedral drift.
But I had never seen so many so close, hundreds,
every limb of the dead oak feathered black,
The connection between divorced fathers and pizza crusts
is understandable. The divorced father does not cook
confidently. He wants his kid to enjoy dinner.
The entire weekend is supposed to be fun. Kids love
pizza. For some reason involving soft warmth and malleability
kids approve of melted cheese on pizza
years before they will tolerate cheese in other situations.
So the divorced father takes the kid and the kid's friend
out for pizza. The kids eat much faster than the dad.
Before the dad has finished his second slice,
