Harmless Poem


Forgive the web without its spider,
The houseplant with few or many flowers,
And the stars for hiding in the daytime,
Forgive astronauts for distance
And surgeons for proximity,
Forgive the heart for the way it looks
Like something a dog eats from a pan,
Forgive goat-gods and wine-gods
And the goddess bathing in her pond,
Forgive the sea for being moody,
The air for its turbulence, the stomach
For its vomit, forgive the insistence
Of sperm, the greeting of the ovum,
Forgive orgasms for their intensity
And the faces they make in people's faces,
Forgive the music of liars, forgive autumn
And winter and the departure of lovers.
And the young beautiful dead and the persistence
Of the old, forgive the last tooth and hair.


Because You Have Seen It So

Sometimes here in autumn, usually after a rainstorm,
The trees one morning lose their leaves and the light
"Abounds earlie in the newly stripp'd branches"

Through the living room windows. The whole house
Gets exposed inside and out to its angles, the glass
Illuminating all sorts of patterns and prints
"Such the gazer might be delighted by passing clouds."

Certain spiders familiarize themselves with corners,
"Their webs flutter'ng in the breeze of the fire."
Dog fur and dust twine like ivy up the chair legs.

You can tell on the chapped lips of lovers, this winter
Will be long. A child will mourn the death of a houseplant
And draw it in its clay pot with green leaves.
The refrigerator door will keep it among magnets.


A Different Kind of Person

I encounter a woman from a long way off
Almost every morning when I walk my dog
In a certain park between certain hours
That have not changed the whole season long.
She owns several coats, all of them
The same length, yesterday a gray one;
Today deep red, and she smoothed her
Cheek as she went by. She sees me
At my worst, unshaven, in my sweats,
Bagging dog shit, my son's skateboard cap
Pulled down to my eyebrows. Hers arch
When she says, "Good morning," which is all
I have ever heard her speak with her accent
From somewhere between the Danube
And the Don, where I bet she modeled coats
In a capital city. How she got here or what
She does is none of my business, and I
Do not wish to say to her more than, "Good
Morning," or ask, "How are you today?"
And spoil the peace we have found among
The ornamental trees native to our region.


The Wharves

Rising and falling on the rising tide
The floating docks at dawn sound
Whale songs along the metal posts.

Then the winches and pulleys begin.
There is fog and out to sea a sun
Yet to be seen and cabin lights

Coming on in the pleasure craft
And houseboats moored in the marina
Slips, where bright fenders bump

Against the pilings, lines extending
And slacking, tied to the cleats.
The trawlers are first going out

Against the tide. The largest lead
Ones take the full brunt of the swells,
The others go easy in the wake, while

Overhead gulls follow old bait,
But not all of them are circulating.
Some are fixed to the planks and pilings

Like lampposts. Ashore, two people
Lean against the dockside fence,
Light cigarettes, and drink from a flask.


The Passages

Some brightly decorated passages,
Lively and fluorescent until dawn,
Like stars are hidden in the daylight —
No signs, no numbers, no names.

Mostly, we live indoors.

I have a favorite pair of shoes
Manufactured in Argentina.
There is nowhere I wish to walk
In them but down those passages.


Fragment

When you consider your own land,
Remote as your childhood room
Where your body grew among
Trophies and pennants to the thing it is
Today,

* * *

  when you recall the first
Mirror you shaved your face before,
Your image, as a young man,
Weak as it was, appears handsome
From this distance like the city
Where you were born, seen from
The sea past the three-mile limit,

* * *

Then rub your body with lotions,
Take pleasure in the wealth of fresh water,
Remember the first time you saw yourself naked.


Song of the Compatriots

My friend and I are running on a trail
Along the hills outside of town.
I am winded, but he could go for miles,
For hours, for days. He could run
Through the night in the forest and by day
Across the desert along the highway
To Mexico or turn north to the pole.
He could find the land bridge to Asia
And run all the way to the coast of Spain.

We stop in the graveyard above the town.
He says to me, "fatso," though I am thin,
"I want to run for miles, for hours, for days.
I want to run through the night in the forest
And all day across the desert along the highway
To Mexico. I could turn north to the pole
Or find the land bridge to Asia and run
All the way to the coast of Spain,
But not today because you are my friend."


When a Child Asks about Angels

When my brother was swept away in a culvert
During a flash flood and entered a drainpipe
Under a road, the stopped motorists, two elderly
Sisters on their way home from church, counted
Their breath until he spilled out in the ditch
On the other side alive where they cheered him
From the rail and walked down the path in the rain
In their Sunday shoes, flowered hats, and dresses, and they
Guided him through the trees to the shelter of their car.
I am grateful forever to their blanket and thermos
And how they hugged him warm with their bodies
While he was trembling, their huge gorgeous bodies.


Things Are Changing for Johanna

I am a...