The Elementary Scene
Looking back in my mind I can see The white sun like a tin plate Over the wooden turning of the weeds; The street jerking a wet swing To end by the wall the
Mail Call
The letters always just evade the hand One skates like a stone into a beam, falls like a bird. Surely the past from which the letters rise Is waiting in the future, past the
Jerome
Each day brings its toad, each night its dragon. Der heilige Hieronymus his lion is at the zoo Listens, listens. All the long, soft, summer day Dreams affright his couch, the deep boils like
Hope
The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life. The week is dealt out like a hand That children pick up card by card. One keeps getting the same hand. One keeps getting the same
The Woman At The Washington Zoo
The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I. . . . this print of mine,
Well Water
What a girl called “the dailiness of life” (Adding an errand to your errand. Saying, “Since you’re up. . .” Making you a means to A means to a means to) is well water
A Sick Child
The postman comes when I am still in bed. “Postman, what do you have for me today?” I say to him. (But really I’m in bed.) Then he says – what shall I have
Eighth Air Force
If, in an odd angle of the hutment, A puppy laps the water from a can Of flowers, and the drunk sergeant shaving Whistles O Paradiso! shall I say that man Is not as
The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black