Born green we were to this flawed garden, but in speckled thickets, warted a… spitefully skulks our warden, fixing his snare

Behind him the hotdogs split and d… On the public grills, and the ochr… Gas tanks, factory stacks– that la… Of imperfections his bowels were p… Rippled and pulsed in the glassy u…

The word of a snail on the plate o… It is not mine. Do not accept it. Acetic acid in a sealed tin? Do not accept it. It is not genui… A ring of gold with the sun in it?

The telegram says you have gone aw… And left our bankrupt circus on it… There is nothing more for me to sa… The maestro gives the singing bird… And they buy tickets for the tropi…

Take the general mumble, blunt as the faceless gut of an anonymous clam, vernacular as the strut of a slug or a small preamble

Summer grows old, cold—blooded mot… The insects are scant, skinny. In these palustral homes we only Croak and wither. Mornings dissipate in somnolence.

By the gate with star and moon Worked into the peeled orange wood The bronze snake lay in the sun Inert as a shoelace; dead But pliable still, his jaw

Gerd sits spindle—shaped in her da… Lean face gone tawn with seasons, Skin worn down to the knucklebones At her tough trade; without time’s… The burnished ball hangs fire in h…

Old man, you surface seldom. Then you come in with the tide’s coming When seas wash cold, foam— Capped: white hair, white beard,

Your brother will trim my hedges! They darken your house, Nosy grower, Mole on my shoulder, To be scratched absently,