Poetry

When we reached Genoa, and the sea did not
open, and we were offered homes or exile,
there was little choice.

Crossing the Iowa prairies, Dvorak found in the waving grasses, in the sway & whorl of foxtail that let loose a rasping he loved, sorrow he never explained.

You were afraid to open, but when you did,

There she was asking to borrow a candle. 

If this were a novel,
it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train

I remember when my body
was a friend,

when sleep like a good dog
came when summoned.

Well, here we are again, old friend, Ancient of Days,

Eyeball to eyeball. 

To save her, they had to cut her brain in two,
Had to sever nerves, strip one lobe almost bare—
It left her blind.

My neighbors’ dog, shut out of their house
a quarter mile uphill from us, has barked
all night, protesting. 

There are some things that can’t be conveyed—
description, for instance,
The sundown light on that dog hair lodge pole pine
and the dead branches of spruce trees.

the absent have left the window open:
the last soldier, stricken,
his moustache gently covered over, has left the bed
undone[…]