The Touch
For months my hand was sealed off In a tin box. Nothing was there but the subway railings. Perhaps it is bruised, I thought, And that is why they have locked it up. You
Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward
Child, the current of your breath is six days long. You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed; Lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong At my breast. Your lips are
Mr. Mine
Notice how he has numbered the blue veins In my breast. Moreover there are ten freckles. Now he goes left. Now he goes right. He is buiding a city, a city of flesh. He’s
August 8th
And do not be indiscreet or unconventional. Play it safe. Listen here. I’ve never played it safe In spite of what the critics say. Ask my imaginary brother, that waif, That childhood best friend
Rapunzel
A woman Who loves a woman Is forever young. The mentor And the student Feed off each other. Many a girl Had an old aunt Who locked her in the study To keep the
The Doctor Of The Heart
Take away your knowledge, Doktor. It doesn’t butter me up. You say my heart is sick unto. You ought to have more respect! You with the goo on the suction cup. You with your
Obsessive Combination Of Onotological Inscape, Trickery And Love
Busy, with an idea for a code, I write Signals hurrying from left to right, Or right to left, by obscure routes, For my own reasons; taking a word like writes Down tiers of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
No matter what life you lead The virgin is a lovely number: Cheeks as fragile as cigarette paper, Arms and legs made of Limoges, Lips like Vin Du Rhône, Rolling her china-blue doll eyes
Rowing
A story, a story! (Let it go. Let it come.) I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender Into this world. First came the crib With its glacial bars. Then dolls And the devotion
The Black Art
A woman who writes feels too much, Those trances and portents! As if cycles and children and islands Weren’t enough; as if mourners and gossips And vegetables were never enough. She thinks she can
Demon
A young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand Over the demon’s mouth sometimes… D. H. Lawrence I mentioned my demon to a friend And the friend swam in oil and
Young
A thousand doors ago When I was a lonely kid In a big house with four Garages and it was summer As long as I could remember, I lay on the lawn at night,
Doctors
They work with herbs And penicillin They work with gentleness And the scalpel. They dig out the cancer, Close an incision And say a prayer To the poverty of the skin. They are not
The Consecrating Mother
I stand before the sea And it rolls and rolls in its green blood Saying, “Do not give up one god For I have a handful.” The trade winds blew In their twelve-fingered reversal
Oh
It is snowing and death bugs me As stubborn as insomnia. The fierce bubbles of chalk, The little white lesions Settle on the street outside. It is snowing and the ninety Year old woman