For God While Sleeping
Sleeping in fever, I am unfair To know just who you are: Hung up like a pig on exhibit, The delicate wrists, The beard drooling blood and vinegar; Hooked to your own weight, Jolting
The Play
I am the only actor. It is difficult for one woman To act out a whole play. The play is my life, My solo act. My running after the hands And never catching up.
For John, Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Further
Not that it was beautiful, But that, in the end, there was A certain sense of order there; Something worth learning In that narrow diary of my mind, In the commonplaces of the asylum
Cockroach
Roach, foulest of creatures, Who attacks with yellow teeth And an army of cousins big as shoes, You are lumps of coal that are mechanized And when I turn on the light you scuttle
The Red Dance
There was a girl Who danced in the city that night, That April 22nd, All along the Charles River. It was as if one hundred men were watching Or do I mean the one
Suicide Note
“You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is A matter of my life” – Artaud “At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers To my daughters and their
Where It Was At Back Then
Husband, Last night I dreamt They cut off your hands and feet. Husband, You whispered to me, Now we are both incomplete. Husband, I held all four In my arms like sons and daughters.
The Fury Of God's Goodbye
One day He Tipped His top hat And walked Out of the room, Ending the argument. He stomped off Saying: I don’t give guarantees. I was left Quite alone Using up the darkness I
More Than Myself
Not that it was beautiful, But that, in the end, there was A certain sense of order there; Something worth learning In that narrow diary of my mind, In the commonplaces of the asylum
Christmas Eve
Oh sharp diamond, my mother! I could not count the cost Of all your faces, your moods That present that I lost. Sweet girl, my deathbed, My jewel-fingered lady, Your portrait flickered all night
That Day
This is the desk I sit at And this is the desk where I love you too much And this is the typewriter that sits before me Where yesterday only your body sat before
The Big Heart
“Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.” – From an essay by W. B. Yeats Big heart, Wide as a watermelon, But wise as birth, There is so much
Going Gone
Over stone walls and barns, Miles from the black-eyed Susans, Over circus tents and moon rockets You are going, going. You who have inhabited me In the deepest and most broken place, Are going,
The Interrogation Of The Man Of Many Hearts
Who’s she, that one in your arms? She’s the one I carried my bones to And built a house that was just a cot And built a life that was over an hour And
The Expatriates
My dear, it was a moment To clutch for a moment So that you may believe in it And believing is the act of love, I think, Even in the telling, wherever it went.