February 2010

Everyone comes here from a long way off
(is a line from a poem I read last night).

                             *     *     *

Driving up 80 in the haze, they talked and talked.
(Smoke in the air shimmering from wildfires.)
His story was sad and hers was roiled,...

Nonentity’s birthplace: a front yard sweeps
its dirt clean. Devil hopped up the oak tree,
devil-take-the-profit seized  
a jay in the twigs by the feet, wings buffeting

this child’s cheeks to rhyme. Leaf of gift
box tissue folded over her pocket comb. Hind
pocket kazoo. Won’t...

When I think of that room
I see the de Kooning at the end of the hall

Sometimes rain on the long windows
Or the tinkering of drops on the skylight

But not Yvon
Splashing Scotch into a cocktail glass

Otherwise fastidious—

In retrospect
I should have asked...