Dark frost was in the air without,
The dusk was still with cold and gloom,
When less than even a shadow came
And stood within the room.
But of the three around the fire,
None turned a questioning head to look,
Still read a clear voice, on and on,
Still stooped they o’ er their book.
At the table, at the grave not knowing
whether to grieve or celebrate, they seemed
to find a way within the stalled noon clatter
and the dusk over oily swamps and elder tangle
along a locked stockade of heavy machines,
as the blue heron, looking down, flew farther on.
Nothing dissolved for them the mortal green
and black in transparent power of spacious streams
now gone from earth. The flickering they found,
terror-hope-terror, in fire of sunset clouds
remained unwavering in its progress to night
My father has a pair of shoes
So beautiful to see.
I want to wear my father's shoes.
They are too big for me.
My baby brother has a pair
As cunning as can be.
My feet won't go into that pair.
They are too small for me.
There's only one thing that I can do
Till I get small or grown.
If I want to have some fitting shoes
I'll have to wear my own.
accumulation of land maintain household bear labor of house child
cooking reserve line belonging to elaborate isolation
familias implements enemies captured in war bearing child rearing
production heirs number and rear household family contains
It was the summer of 1976 when I saw the moon fall down.
It broke like a hen’ s egg on the sidewalk.
The garden roiled with weeds, hummed with gnats who settled clouds on my
oblivious siblings.
A great hunger insatiate to find / A dulcet ill, an evil sweetness blind.
A gush of yolk and then darker.
Somewhere a streetlamp disclosed the insides of a Chevy Impala — vinyl seats, the rear- view,
headrests and you, your hand through your hair.
An indistinguishable burning, failing bliss.
1
I seek a permanent home, but this structure has an appearance of indifferent compoundedness and isolation, heading toward hopelessness.
The boy pulls an animal on a leash.
The house with a red roof rests between two hills.
I can look through its windows to the sea.
His aggression opposes what in a domestic animal, cold open space, large enough to work with isolation?
House is the projection, space around it intermediary, theater.
I was so worried the hickory I recognized
had died from salt burn in the last hurricane
I may have passed by vervain and apple haw
like they didn’ t matter, but this spring
it put out seven shoots from its base.
Still, the oldest trick is the moon missing,
then the “new” moon appears,
though we know it’ s the old one, and we pretend
to be taken in like the mother or baby
behind the bath towel.
Really it’ s the moon winking,
being the stone that holds stones and now footprints.
has been written in mud and butter
and barbecue sauce. The walls and
the floors used to be gorgeous.
The socks off-white and a near match.
The quince with fire blight
but we get two pints of jelly
in the end. Long walks strengthen
the back. You with a fever blister
and myself with a sty. Eyes
have we and we are forever prey
to each other’ s teeth. The torrents
go over us. Thunder has not harmed
anyone we know. The river coursing
through us is dirty and deep. The left
hand protects the rhythm. Watch
Your mother’ s in the kitchen and out
and in again. It’ s all about them.
They’ ve taken over like the dark cloud
hanging low over the back yard,
a fat aunt coming in for a hug.
Enough’ s enough. The door opens:
new guests flow in as the old
back you up like mangroves.
Why get dressed up to stay in?
Pretend to befriend other children
because they have been dumped next to you?
Resistance, then fire, then to your room
without toys. Later, it’ ll be the boys
to whom your friends will cater,
