Poetry

Days later, not long after we left the convent,
the war ended. I promised to take her directly
to the train station, but the sight of her
on the back seat scrambling out of that uniform,

The workers specialize according to their age.
At first they feed the queen her royal jelly
and then they nurse the larvae in their combs.

A summer rain front laces a trailing hat of mist
around the headland’s mountain: a saucer of mist
scraping the treetops    hanging over rock outcrops

My grandfather’s right eye was a frozen slab
of milk-white ice that light never thawed
and when he slept, the lid didn’t drown
the curse of its constant stare.

There are those that in the distance seem a swarm of gnats
those that with their barking try to rally us in a campaign against the stars
those that torment their prey

Praised be friends. Praise enemies.
Praise the dark above.
Praise hangovers. Praise cigarettes.
The vulture and the dove.

He was an example of anti-nominal determinism,
though he was friendly in manner, kindly
explaining that my light headedness

In some last inventory, I’ll have lost a season,
through the occlusion
of summer by another hemisphere.

I breathe the leaves of the basil
It has news for me—
For all my senses

Alec, I said you’d be around
by stratagem or shift
looking for a lift
to the somewhere burial ground