Poetry

Above the kitchen table where my children color,
their big calendar frames a drawing—

Down empty roads gray with rain;
through branches
of new leaves then still
more light than leaf;

At first the surprise
of being singled out,
the dance floor crowded
and me not looking my best,
a too-often-worn dress
and the man with me
a budding casualty
of one repetition too much.

There is this sunny place where I imagine him.
A park on a hill whose grass wants to turn
Into dust, & would do so if it weren’t

I read the papers and think about hatred:
and the way ideas, especially big ideas,
look more and more like excuses for hatred.