Home Life

Christmas Away from Home

Her sickness brought me to Connecticut.
Mornings I walk the dog: that part of life
is intact. Who's painted, who's insulated
or put siding on, who's burned the lawn
with lime — that's the news on Ardmore Street.

The leaves of the neighbor's respectable
rhododendrons curl under in the cold.
He has backed the car
through the white nimbus of its exhaust
and disappeared for the day.

In the hiatus between mayors
the city has left leaves in the gutters,
and passing cars lift them in maelstroms.

Running Away

In the green rags of the Bible I tore up
The straight silk of childhood on my head
I left the house, I fled
My mother’ s brow where I had no ambition
But to stroke the writing
I raked in.

She who dressed in wintersilk my head
That month when there is baize on the high wall
Where the dew cloud presses its lustration,
And the thrush is but a brooch of rain
As the world flies softly in the wool of heaven.

Myself with Cats

Hanging out the wash, I visit the cats.

"I don't belong to nobody," Yang insists vulgarly.

"Yang," I reply, "you don't know nothing."

Yin, an orange tabby, agrees

but puts kindness ahead of rigid truth.

I admire her but wish she wouldn't idolize

the one who bullies her. I once did that.

Her silence speaks needles when Yang thrusts

his ugly tortoiseshell body against hers,

sprawled in my cosmos. "Really, I don't mind,"

she purrs — her eyes horizontal, her mouth

an Ionian smile, her legs crossed nobly

Self-portrait in a Gold Kimono

Born, I was born.
Tears represent how much my mother loves me,
shivering and steaming like a horse in rain.
My heart as innocent as Buddha's,
my name a Parisian bandleader's,
I am trying to stand.
Father is holding me and blowing in my ear,
like a glassblower on a flame.
Stars on his blue serge uniform flaunt a feeling
of formal precision and stoicism.
Growing, I am growing now,
as straight as red pines in the low mountains.
Please don't leave, Grandmother Pearl.
I become distressed

[My mother saw the green tree toad]

My mother saw the green tree toad
on the window sill
her first one
since she was young.
We saw it breathe

and swell up round.
My youth is no sure sign
I’ ll find this kind of thing
tho it does sing.
Let’ s take it in

I said so grandmother can see
but she could not
it changed to brown
and town
changed us, too.

faithless

herd on da wind you come back fo me
didn’ t think you come back fo me
didn’ t think you come back at all
been so long my skin grew tired

dis life too hard to know all alone
caroline cover me jus fine
she a quilt ginst the cold in ma blood
she mend de torn spots in ma soul

aint got no mind ta leev dis place
go on mosesfind yo promise lan
mines is here beside dis fire
wid folks we knows from when we’ s born

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