Two by two the kernels hit the metal pail, blue stalks stiff as thin batons stripped green braids from yellow tails,   nightshade cast in shadows between fronds. They…

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  After 90—a little bird-like cocking of her head to gather what she could from the periphery.   Her eager pupilage, dulled.   Retinas—their rites by rote, their prayers for…

  Madame Maman at the kitchen table, in turban and curlers,   reading the cards. Clucks and sighs suggest my stint on earth gets grim.   She won’t say how…

  Fear yields the perfect ping of a wine glass in a war zone, magnifies anemones into fields of enemies. In case of emergency it breaks your skin.   Shrapnel…

  (Vatican Museum)   In this huge copy of Guido Reni’s Slaughter of the Innocents, men of power turn their backs on death and tourists; soldiers avert their eyes as…

  Small creature                   running through the burning grass,         you will be of use. In the old language,                   there was nothing but simple words,                  …

  When you come to a door, do not think you need to open it. When the door is a man, close it. When the door is a man, rub…

  You’ll come to learn that my father left me when I was a child & your father’s father died in a Berlin prison. We exchanged these stories the night…

  Caught in the thought-tangled thicket The ram by its horns grows weary: How begin to die? A child no longer A child asks his question to the stone He…

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Dear Lightning it was the lightning Lord that knocked the tall firs down One fir on either side Across the narrow road to the monastery / Trapping me there in…