Some closets are full
of sentimental things that mattered once:
toys and photographs, letters, old poems.
The ghosts tiptoe around the dusty boxes;
their bony toes rattle on the floor.
The ghosts moon over a ragged doll,
caress a tattered book.
Other closets are stuffed with
things of the mind, things of the heart:
things I might have done,
things I might have made,
people I might have loved.
The ghosts shake their powdery heads.
Ah, they whisper, your precious past.,
so sad, so sweet, so—passing.
The ghosts are not so easy to evict.
You don’t sing any more, or chatter.
Weather doesn’t matter.
It is important to keep the apple bag straps flat,
most important to lift with your thighs.
What does pain matter?
Hands the color of uncured ham,
ass cold in the wet jeans,
feet cold with water from frosted grass
seeping through cheap cracked boots.
You keep trying to think about war
and Wall Street, troubles of your friends.
You keep trying to pray.
All you can pray is apple, apple, apple;
all you can think is one at a time, one more.
Twiggy remains of goldfinch nests
are bound with trellis twine.
One autumn day many years ago I stole
an antique book with a tan leather cover
embossed in gold. The thin pages smelt of mice.
It was in a pile of many heaped
in a corner in a muddled room
on the condemned third floor of a gothic
sandstone castle awaiting remodeling
including–and this is important–new wiring.
It was a building I loved.
When spring came, it all burned up.
Nothing remained but a stone shell and they
bulldozed that into the foundation hole
and built a garage on the spot. I wish
I had taken all the books.
Henry Sheldon would have–
and a juice glass from the dining room and
Look at his hands and tell me what is his job.
Yes, rough like your pa’s hands, so hard work.
That lady has been crying, has red eyes.
See— gold ring on her thumb.
I think her husband is maybe dead.
There is accent behind; no, don’t look.
You know is not German, not Russian.
Czech. Is enough like Polish to make me laugh.
Someday you teach your children
always there is something new to see.
Why is that man wearing slippers?
Is he stupid, or did he forget?
Oh maybe no shoes,
but look at his clothes.
He is not poor.
Remember story: I thought my papa
Go early, our friends told us,
just before sunrise, when the light
above the mountains is a pink line
that slowly turns yellow, then gold,
and the sun sends up a long pale pillar.
Then the geese will rise, calling,
against the sky.
You can hear the whisper of their wings.
We went to see the geese,
early, Orion and the waning sickle moon
still in the deep blue sky. We heard
very far away, the geese muttering
in a low wet place, waiting for dawn.
The sky turned pink, and the sun
sent up its shaft of light, and the gray
clouds thickened and the light
Soft grassed hills, sage brush and cedar,
cottonwood in the gullies by the slick green creek.
The kind of land we came from
when we descended from the trees:
watered, rooted, peopled with game,
the long look with no surprises.
Places to watch and places to hide.
Stars to tell the way.
Five days.
Already I’ve forgotten
how to pray.
Nose full of dust and salt,
ears full of silence,
boats, birds.
The sea is grey crayon lines on the sky.
Yesterday when I was looking, a right whale
leapt all out of the water,
a plume of foam
with dolphins dancing high around.
I have eaten too many fish
drunk too much wine
watched too many hours in the sun
no words
The baby is working hard at his tasks.
Each kettle, each bowl has its surfaces,
each hollow reflects a special sound.
Will his legs hold him up today?
Will the food on his tray be strange?
Each time he yells, his people respond.
Is this the day his sounds will be words?
His grandmother is working, too.
Her kettle is full of white beans and herbs.
There are harmonies she is trying to remember.
Where will her feet take her?
When she cries, who will hear her?
Laughter is her practice now.
What silence must she hold in her heart?
Our fabric is woven so tight and fine,
garments stitched up with pride—
gunbelts and helmets and gold—
We have the combinations,
watches, buttons, colored shoes.
This hat will keep you safe.
This cloak will end your pain.
See us in parade, wearing
mirrors of our own devising.
But where is the little child?
Around the next corner
on the street of clowns?
Down by the river
where improbable ducks dive
below the ice to feed?
Beneath your coat,
Last night for my dinner
I slit open a womb of squash,
scooped out the papery ivory eggs,
sliced a green-white onion body so wet and alive
the two halves would not fit tight together.
I made a salad of living things,
infants of broccoli and radish;
dressed it with the blood of olive and grape.
The boundaries are not clear.
This morning the dog dug a nest of mice
out of long grass, swallowed the babies
like little pink pills. They slid easy
down her throat: wriggling embryos
dissolving in her stomach,
becoming dog.
I commend them to their god.
I notice that nothing
is what I think:
the cat an oval with fuzzy
edges, dog tail a beret
perched on her head.
The book is narrow
as its spine. Trees
get small, the road
vanishes. Shadows
blend with teacups,
leaves twist their points
at me, every nose
is striped with white,
city roofs stack
and shade. Nothing
squares. Windows
Ostrowy, Poland.
Broken bannister painted brown.
Somewhere in Quebec:
Three-eighths mystery.
Albany, Vermont
Two sons, their separate ways.
Charlotte, Vermont.
Nothing but the garden.
Cleveland, Ohio.
Live geese in a basket;
Bavarian china on layaway.
Stowe, Vermont.
Pasture ghosts.
The wrath of trees.
Portland, Maine.
The freedom of the uniform.