Poetry
The Hawk
He was halfway through the grackle when I got home. From the kitchen I saw blood, the black feathers scattered on snow. How the bird bent to each skein of flesh, his muscles tacking to the strain and tear. The … Continue reading
Identification
Morning routine at my desk. Close to noon, a half-inch insect, to me looking female, starts up the high inside pane of the northeast window. Three light yellow legs angle out each side of her body; white wings stay folded. … Continue reading
Penumbra
The child in the cracked photograph sits still in the rope swing hung from a live oak. Her velvet dress brims with a lace frill. Her pet bantam is quiet in her lap. It is the autumn day of a … Continue reading
Hound Dog
Lapin au poivre, at your fork’s plunge so lavishly pungent my mouth waters in this West Village restaurant whose tablecloth we’ve already spotted with wine and bits of bread. Long since moved back to native ground, I’m foolhardy with nostalgia … Continue reading
Counting Horses
One, to see the horses still stand, wind moving manes or sun tilting morning shadows onto wires and posts enclosing the pasture; to have them caught in moment and web, early hum of birds lifting from oaks. Two, to find … Continue reading
Moths
One May evening, we turned a corner and found insects, more than a mile of them, backlit against the setting sun. Like a storm of living snow, They owned the world entirely. “Gnats,” my son said, although they seemed more … Continue reading
Written on the Due Date of a Child Never Born
Echinacea, bee balm, aster. Trumpet vine I watch your mother bend to prune, water sluicing silver from the hose – another morning you will never see. Summer solstice: dragonflies flare the unpetaled rose. 6 a.m. & already she’s breaking down, … Continue reading
Victory Song
As I run to the springhouse to get a cold drink, I am laughing and the world absolutely sings. For under the rafter where their gray bag hung like a paper temple, as the ragged threshold, on blue steps of … Continue reading
Eleutheria
She was named Eleutheria, Which means “Freedom” in both ancient and modern Greek. In translating it, she altered the meaning. Freedom was not in her vocabulary. Hers was a jealous nature; she didn’t care For the poets who were her … Continue reading
Walter Anderson Sleeping on the Levee
In New Orleans to research Hurricane Betsy, the one he’d ridden out tied to a tree trunk on Horn Island, he rolled up for the night on the levee by Audubon Park, letting the Mississippi talk him to sleep. Surrounded … Continue reading