Poems

walking up John Street
thinking of you
I saw a slash of sea
between houses and felt — as always,
no matter mood, its or mine — 

commandments
and merchandise
secondhand husbands
philandering

and
landless

and vandal
bandwagons slandered
and branded
handwritten reprimands

in a hurry. The voice
said walk or die, I
walked,—the train

and the voice all
blurry. I walked with
my bones and my heart

You cannot see what is there to see —
not when she whose love you failed is
standing next to you. Then, as if refusing the know-
ledge that life unseparated from her is death, as if
again scorning your refusals, she turns away. The end
achieved by the unappeased is burial within.

all I can think is things that are
stupid, like he loves me he loves me
not? I don’t think so. No more
than, some mornings, waking to your
hands around me, and remembering
these are the fingers, the hands I’ve

Down at the water’s edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.

No one breathes as Walter Lee vacillates,
uncertain of obsequity or indignation after Lindner offers
to buy the family out of the house they've purchased
in the all-white suburb, Walter might kneel to accept,
but he senses the tension in his son's gaze.

“Ginia, where are you, darling?”
Sometimes a picture reveals far more past
that instant of distracted revelation.
I can touch you on the neck, how’s that?!
That swansdown neck parfumed,
shouldered by that soft white linen smock.

I’m less than swept away
when he invites me back to his place;
when he tells me he’ll treat me
like any good gentleman would,
any great pair of legs
deserves a great night
from any man who wants a piece.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;