Poetry

I once believed in heavenly clarity—
do you know how good it feels to sing
of certainty, the wild apricot

At first among certain shadows 
you felt forbidden to ask whose they were.

Metrophobia
I, too dislike it, or at least I find
too much of it bromidic and unrhymed,

Above me in the night
My unknown neighbors walk 
Across a creaking floor

The ghost of the nineteenth century
still stalks the eaves 
of the hurricane house, its clapboard sheaves

When I hear that boy sing, I said, every other
Boy becomes a disappointment. Tiny wince

You flared across Boston
like a meteor, blond mane and lowered brow
in every coffeehouse off the Charles.

The town, my dear, is closing down: dead-
Bolts slipping into their sleeves, cicadas insisting

These arms, after all,
are open for no one
else. Posture of air

Come work with me awhile, Hayden,
I can use your company in the shed 
among tools your hands have never lost