Muckers
TWENTY men stand watching the muckers. Stabbing the sides of the ditch Where clay gleams yellow, Driving the blades of their shovels Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains Wiping sweat off their
Yes, the Dead Speak to Us
YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead
Cumulatives
STORMS have beaten on this point of land And ships gone to wreck here And the passers-by remember it With talk on the deck at night As they near it. Fists have beaten on
White Ash
THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice. She used to keep a houseful of girls in kimonos and three pushbuttons on the front door. Now
Winter Milk
THE MILK drops on your chin, Helga, Must not interfere with the cranberry red of your cheeks Nor the sky winter blue of your eyes. Let your mammy keep hands off the chin. This
Nights Nothings Again
WHO knows what I know When I have asked the night questions And the night has answered nothing Only the old answers? Who picked a crimson cryptogram, The tail light of a motor car
Bricklayer Love
I THOUGHT of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store. I don’t care like I used to; I lay bricks
Near Keokuk
THIRTY-TWO Greeks are dipping their feet in a creek. Sloshing their bare feet in a cool flow of clear water. All one midsummer day ten hours the Greeks stand in leather shoes shoveling gravel.
Five Cent Balloons
PIETRO has twenty red and blue balloons on a string. They flutter and dance pulling Pietro’s arm. A nickel apiece is what they sell for. Wishing children tag Pietro’s heels. He sells out and
To Certain Journeymen
UNDERTAKERS, hearse drivers, grave diggers, I speak to you as one not afraid of your business. You handle dust going to a long country, You know the secret behind your job is the same
Fire Pages
I WILL read ashes for you, if you ask me. I will look in the fire and tell you from the gray lashes And out of the red and black tongues and stripes, I
Anna Imroth
CROSS the hands over the breast here so. Straighten the legs a little more so. And call for the wagon to come and take her home. Her mother will cry some and so will
Monotone
The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain. The sun on the hills is beautiful, Or a captured sunset sea-flung, Bannered with fire
To a Dead Man
Over the dead line we have called to you To come across with a word to us, Some beaten whisper of what happens Where you are over the dead line Deaf to our calls
Valley Song
YOUR eyes and the valley are memories. Your eyes fire and the valley a bowl. It was here a moonrise crept over the timberline. It was here we turned the coffee cups upside down.