Corfu, 1972

happy & alone

with golden & toddlers

I live in a villa one step up from

a chicken house — the droppings & straw

we shovel out the first morning

windows without glass

cistern to hang cold food in

a new trench dug weekly

to shit in behind the house

Diogenes, a dog tied to a rope

shelters in an urn knocked over

my dog avoids Diogenes as if

it were Damocles — mind the sword

a book to write in, no books to read

we walk down the hill

to a table under a tree, the men

ranged round try German

syllables learned in the war

their wide eyes, their confusion

what am I? woman alone

with children, they want to know

where is your man? I have none

shake my head & smile

I want eggs

they don’t know German for egg

I don’t know Greek, I draw, mime

we struggle together — avgó — 

they laugh & laugh

one calls to the open door

behind him, a woman all

in black, also amazed, brings me eggs

suggests a lemon, a carton of milk

I fumble coins, she takes a few

glowers at the gaping men

shames them to look away

points to the children, points

to me, yes, I say, nodding twice

next time they call her right away

the sun turns us gold

we wash in cold water

eat fresh-picked figs all day

Toward the End

I find my father strapped to a hospital bed

flat on his back in a room shared with a man

strapped to a chair who speaks loud & unstoppable

of what has been done to him — crimes —

he names them, a large man, his chair scrapes

the linoleum, a small room, the chair in the corner

is what I see first, window next to

the chair, to my right the head of the bed

against the wall, I walk around the bed

to stand at the other side, my father’s eyes

roll from one side of the bed to the other

from anguished wife to me wearing one of

the prettiest dresses I ever owned, fitted bodice

a swirl below, dark sleek fabric with tiny bouquets

this man who all the time I knew him acted

as if he ruled the world spits soft consonants

from louche lips, his retreating hair, pale

now scarcely freckled skin, lolls his head

back & forth from one woman to the other

beseeching, leering, faint, I hope someone

will give each man a rucksack, release

each man to a meadow high in the Alps

summer sun, fresh breeze, lupines

among the wildflowers, if sense can be had

only freedom will bring it, only wild.

Reassembly

sounds wake me, or I’m awake & sounds

bring up from the depths of mind

crowds of neurons, billions of connections

cohere into one idea: it might be an owl

advice: roll onto your back so both

ears can listen, a great horned owl

as it was last time — hoo hoo

hoo hoo hoo, hoo hoo —

if one owl speaks, does another owl hear it?

undertow of marsh rats, voles & moles

whisper of wet reeds, rain-soaked earth

tunnel mazes, three times

the owl, or the owls, speak while I

asleep, awake & grateful, listen

My Little Force

— title by Emily

spandrels are triangular

some trapezoidal

the edges of their geometries

curve away from straight

n.b. the Henry pocket

decorating cats’ & dogs’ ears

(dispense with Henry before proceeding)

anything precision made

contains a spandrel (spandrels)

side effect, byproduct, pendentive

corbel, squinch

you (after Adam) can name anything you want

after the fact

spandrel = surprise

language, culture, pacifism, love

each a spandrel

void & light of your eye

Pittsburgh, 1952

a small child in me, dressed in dark

wool against the cold

                                     my mother holds

my hand, holds my brother’s hand

he struggles free, runs ahead along

the snowy street, down the metal stairs

to reach the tracks the trolley rattles in on

rushes through the open door

                                                   we follow

my mother pays, tidy, she sits me down

sits beside me

                          I peer back at the narrow

aisle, metal poles, cracked leather

murky panes of window glass, dusty

smell

           to the broad seat where grimed men

overcoated, some wearing galoshes

grunt & shift, making space for my brother

Hard Wired

by Jack Gilbert

He is shamelessly happy to feel the thing

inside him. He labors up through the pines

with firewood and goes back down again.

Winter on the way. Roses and blackberries

finished, and the iris gone before that.

The peas dead in the garden and the beans

almost done. His tomatoes are finally ripe.

The thing is inside him like that, and will

come back. An old thing, a dangerous one.

Precious to him. He meets the raccoon often

in the dark and ends up throwing stones.

The raccoon gets behind a tree. Comes again,

cautious and fierce. It stops halfway.

They stand glaring in the faint starlight.

Perturbations

of the physical frame

recommend themselves to be

— at last — the final ones

cramp, spasm, dizzy

spell, fumble, locations

of pain

autumn-yellow sunflowers

— autumn — is

what takes gardens

to darkened rest, each October

a recognition

spring to come

O My Sweet Animals

by Salvatore Quasimodo

Now autumn spoils the green of hills,

o my sweet animals. Again we'll hear,

before the night, the last lament

of birds, the call of the grey plain

that goes to meet that high sound

of the sea. And the smell of wood

in the rain, the smell of dens,

how it lives here among the houses,

among the men, o my sweet animals.

This face that turns its lingering eyes,

this hand that indicates the sky where

thunder roars, are yours, o my wolves,

my foxes burnt by blood.

Each hand, each face is yours.

You, love, tell me all was vain,

life, the days corroded by a water

assiduous, while from the gardens rises

a children's song. Are they distant,

then from us? But they yield in the air

hardly like shadows. This your voice.

But I perhaps do know all has not been.

— translated by Allen Mandelbaum

O miei dolci animali

Ora l’autunno guasta il verde ai colli,

o miei dolci animali. Ancora udremo,

prima di notte, l’ultimo lamento

degli uccelli, il richiamo della grigia

pianura che va incontro a quel rumore

alto di mare. E l’odore di legno

alla pioggia, l’odore delle tane,

com’è vivo qui fra le case,

fra gli uomini, o miei dolci animali.

Questo volto che gira gli occhi lenti,

questa mano che segna il cielo dove

romba un tuono, sono vostri, o miei lupi,

mie volpi bruciate dal sangue.

Ogni mano, ogni volto, sono vostri.

Tu mi dici che tutto è stato vano,

la vita, i giorno corrosi da un’acqua

assidua, mentre sale dai giardini

un canto di fanciulli. Ora lontani,

dunque, da noi? Ma cedono nell’aria

come ombre appena. Questa la tua voce.

Ma forse io so che tutto non è stato.

A Type of Sponge

what if the rest of my life consists of language unraveling?

raveling means the same, the un- is for emphasis

when I wanted to say postage stamp I thought pocket book

as two words, naturally, because I had the sense right, only

the words wrong, Debbie supplied them, I think she sees me

raveling — sees me say something & then wonder aloud

what it is I’ve said & how it relates to what I wanted to say

a type of sponge, I said to the gardener, it was the second

time in one day loofah had failed to resolve — think

stalled synapse, don’t think, speaking is not thinking

it’s speaking, it’s automatic, relies on a lookup function

mine is failing, at one time my mind ran so fast my mouth

could scarcely keep up, my hand could not — these days

my mind loiters, my mouth falters, somewhere a final

curtain gathers itself, readies silent folds for the fall

God’s Justice

by Anne Carson

In the beginning there were days set aside for various tasks.

On the day He was to create justice

God got involved in making a dragonfly

and lost track of time.

It was about two inches long

with turquoise dots all down its back like Lauren Bacall.

God watched it bend its tiny wire elbows

as it set about cleaning the transparent case of its head.

The eye globes mounted on the case

rotated this way and that

as it polished every angle.

Inside the case

which was glassy black like the windows of a downtown bank

God could see the machinery humming

and He watched the hum

travel all the way down turquoise dots to the end of the tail

and breathe off as light.

Its black wings vibrated in and out.