Maxine Kumin

In the Park

You have forty-nine days between Death and rebirth if you’re a Buddhist. Even the smallest soul could swim The English Channel in that time Or climb, like a ten-month-old child, Every step of the

Purgatory

And suppose the darlings get to Mantua, Suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin With him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a Displeasing cockerel, there’s egg yolk on his chin. His seedy

Woodchucks

Gassing the woodchucks didn’t turn out right. The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange Was featured as merciful, quick at the bone And the case we had against them was airtight, Both

The Hermit Goes Up Attic

Up attic, Lucas Harrison, God rest His frugal bones, once kept a tidy account By knifecut of some long-gone harvest. The wood was new. The pitch ran down to blunt The year: 1811, the