Captain Frank
What you first notice,
his hands cracked and battered,
in places raw,
from dredging oysters,
his bare living,
from the bottom of the Chesapeake.
Category / Poetry
Quilting
These phrases, stitched together, must convey
a finished thing, with some intensity
and maybe some surprise. You take the way
a necktie—one with silky dignity,
accustomed to the better restaurants—
Arachne
I the spider
waiting for the cabbage
butterfly
here among the vegetables.
Strong web
of my instincts
Moviegoers
It’s about forgetting
what’s beyond your few feet of space.
Does it make you laugh? Think? Cry?
Cringe gripping the armrest of your seat?
Journal Entry: Even If It Takes All Night
You’d think darkness enough
to lull, but the streetlight flares up
at the foot of the bed, burns all night.
Some parts of the world fall deeper
into their shadows, and some
shape themselves into creatures
you cannot name. I cannot name
all the reasons why I am unable
to remember my dreams.
Telling Time
Tonight, I stood outside, named the stars
you’d named for me. Dug out maps
that told you how to go. My actions,
you once said, let those stand for me.
Between
trespass quietly
to smell the end of summer
in the sundown trees
and lunchbox rust
Footprints in the Snow
These are French footprints,
leaving the road north of Beauvais,
disappearing into a Norman wood.
Boot size and tread say—a man.
A Poem
This broad plank of a table,
wood warped and wavy,
pitches the most familiar things —
cups, bowls, my orange thermos —
The Family
There are four of them: two solid sorrel horses,
and two spotted goats.
Some permutation of patterns is always grazing
side by side. Or sometimes playing—