Sunday Noons
SamplerHaving bought a Sunday paper, I stood sipping coffee in our village store, absently staring through the plate glass window onto the street. I was conscious of the affable buzz of my neighbors’ palaver all around me. I couldn’t catch specifics…
Disappearances
SamplerRapt, an old man inspects his living room mirror
but not for his image. Instead, its angle
subtly reflects the light of a stub of candle
on the silent piano. He might say the reflection shimmers
but the years, though blessed, have…
Thaw
SamplerWhen he fetched the morning paper, he read of the would-be bomber wrestled
down by fellow travelers. A mile in the air, but nothing exploded,
the man merely scorched his own shins. Here icicles fall and bleed on the ground,
his…
Oko
SamplerI smacked my foot against a table leg this morning and scolded myself: Watch where you’re going! A blood-bead stood below the nail, whose jaundiced color puzzled our grandson, here for the weekend. He asked, “Grandpa, how come you’re gold?”
But…
Overdose
SamplerHe spoke of how one day he tried to find
distraction by cleaning out his attic.
As though he could. Up there he came upon
his son’s toy Tonka tractor, pocked by rust.
It seemed a relic from an ancient age
but something too the boy might…
Your Flight
SamplerPure quiet in the room, but for tat-tat-tat–
sparks from your fireplace
against the flue. You imagine
they seek escape, as you did
in yesterday’s early morning vision,
which let you rise high, for instance,
above the frame of that…