The gathering family throws shadows around us, it is the late afternoon Of the family. There is still enough light

We think of hidden in a white dres… among the folded linens and sachet… of well-kept cupboards, or just ou… sending jellies and notes with no… to all the wondering Amherst neigh…

I married you for all the wrong re… charmed by your dangerous family h… by the innocent muscles, bulging l… weapons under your shirt, by your… the colors of painted scraps of su…

What we want is never simple. We move among the things we thought we wanted: a face, a room, an open book

I am only leaving you for a handful of days but it feels as thought i will be gone forever the way the door closes

When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away

When our cars touched When you lifted the hood of mine To see the intimate workings under… When we were bound together By a pulse of pure energy,

We invent our gods the way the Greeks did, in our own image’€”but magnified. Athena, the very mother of wisdom, squabbled with Poseidon

Into the gravity of my life, the serious ceremonies of polish and paper and pen, has come this manic animal

1. THE SACRIFICE On this tile the knife like a sickle-moon hangs in the painted air

Finding a new poet is like finding a new wildflower out in the woods. You don’t see its name in the flower books, and nobody you tell believes

It was early May, I think a moment of lilac or dogwood when so many promises are made it hardly matters if a few are bro… My mother and father still hovered

For Jews, the Cossacks are always… Therefore I think the sun spot on… is melanoma. Therefore I celebrat… New Year’s Eve by counting my annual dead.

I sing a song of the croissant and of the wily French who trick themselves daily back to the world