for Hayden Carruth If you didn’t see the six-legged d… It doesn’t matter. We did, and he mostly lay in the c… As for the extra legs,

It seemed the kind of life we want… Wild strawberries and cream in the… Sunlight in every room. The two of us walking by the sea n… Some evenings, however, we found o…

Your mother carried you Out of the smoking ruins of a buil… And set you down on this sidewalk Like a doll bundled in burnt rags, Where you now stood years later

They arrive inside They object at evening. There’s no one to meet them. The lamps they carry Cast their shadows

The mail truck goes down the coast Carrying a single letter. At the end of a long pier The bored seagull lifts a leg now… And forgets to put it down.

Where the path to the lake twists… A puff of dust, the kind bare feet… Is what I saw in the dying light, Night swooping down everywhere els… A low branch heavy with leaves

Where it says snow read teeth-marks of a virgin Where it says knife read you passed through my bones like a police-whistle

Millions were dead; everybody was… I stayed in my room. The Presiden… Spoke of war as of a magic love po… My eyes were opened in astonishmen… In a mirror my face appeared to me

On the road with billowing poplars… In a country flat and desolate To the far-off gray horizon, where… A man and a woman went on foot, Each carrying a small suitcase.

I liked my little hole, Its window facing a brick wall. Next door there was a piano. A few evenings a month a crippled old man came to play

In my great grandmother’s time, All one needed was a broom To get to see places And give the geese a chase in the… •

Executioner happy to explain How his wristwatch works As he shadows me on the street. I call him that because he is grim… And wears black.

The brightly-painted horse Had a boy’s face, And four small wheels Under his feet, Plus a long string

Father studied theology through th… And this was exam time. Mother knitted. I sat quietly wit… Full of pictures. Night fell. My hands grew cold touching the fa…