Relationships

As if  anyone has the desire   ...
Vickey trailed off, pouring another lager

There'll be nothing left
But fur and bone, as my lawyer once explained

To my ex, she resumed, tapping a long cigarette
On the bar. My, you're a bit snarky tonight

Said Luther. Maybe you need a change of  venue,
A beach with your breath on it

Oh, she replied, nodding towards the far corner booth,
These writers are so obnoxious

I wish they'd find a new place to complain.
Ha, said Hillary, they wouldn't know a good story

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

Quick! quick!
The cat's been sick.

Where? where?
Under the chair.

Hasten! hasten!
Fetch the basin.

Alack! alack!
It is too late,
The carpet's in
An awful state.

My pa he didn’ t go to town
Last evening after tea,
But got a book and settled down
As comfy as could be.
I’ ll tell you I was offul glad
To have my pa about
To answer all the things I had
Been tryin’ to find out.

Little Robin Redbreast
Sat upon a tree;
Up went Pussy-cat,
Down went he.

Down came Pussy-cat,
And away Robin ran;
Says little Robin Redbreast
“Catch me if you can.”

Little Robin Redbreast
Hopped upon a wall;
Pussy-cat jumped after him,
And almost got a fall.

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.

There’ s a mystery
By the river, in one of the cabins
Shuttered with planks, its lock
Twisted; a bunch of magazines flipped open,
A body. A blanket stuffed with leaves
Or lengths of rope, an empty gin bottle.
Put down your newspaper. Look out
Beyond the bluffs, a coal barge is passing,
Its deck nearly
Level with the water, where it comes back riding

The way a tired Chippewa woman
Who’ s lost a child gathers up black feathers,
Black quills & leaves
That she wraps & swaddles in a little bale, a shag
Cocoon she carries with her & speaks to always
As if it were the child,
Until she knows the soul has grown fat & clever,
That the child can find its own way at last;
Well, I go everywhere

So the tide forgets, as morning
Grows too far delivered, as the bowls
Of rock and wood run dry.
What is left seems pearled and lit,
As those cases
Of the museum stood lit
With milk jade, rows of opaque vases
Streaked with orange and yellow smoke.
You found a lavender boat, a single
Figure poling upstream, baskets

The sale began — young girls were there,
Defenseless in their wretchedness,
Whose stifled sobs of deep despair
Revealed their anguish and distress.

And mothers stood, with streaming eyes,
And saw their dearest children sold;
Unheeded rose their bitter cries,
While tyrants bartered them for gold.