Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Disappearing Trick

Poems By Len Roberts

University of Illinois Press

Copyright © 2007 Len Roberts
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-252-07374-8

Contents

IWashing the Steps......................................................................................................3My Old Friend, My Daughter, October, Wassergass........................................................................4I blame it on him......................................................................................................6I CAN'T FORGET YOU.....................................................................................................8The Silent Archangels..................................................................................................10The Eternal Present of the Ancient Chinese Poems.......................................................................12Cover Girl Sparkle.....................................................................................................13Flicking...............................................................................................................14Receiving at the Kneeling Rail.........................................................................................15The Disappearing Trick.................................................................................................16Pear Tart..............................................................................................................17IIPitching in the Aggie..................................................................................................21A Room for Jesus.......................................................................................................22The Right Dress........................................................................................................24The starlings fill the trees...........................................................................................25At the Breakfast Table with My Seventeen-Year-Old Son..................................................................26Car on the Road, Late July, Wassergass.................................................................................27Letter to HC in the Hospital...........................................................................................28MISSING................................................................................................................30Fireflies at the Cohoes Drive-In.......................................................................................32The saints always......................................................................................................34Card Game..............................................................................................................36IIIIndulgences for the Dead...............................................................................................39In the Expert Valet Clothing Shop......................................................................................41Another Lent, the purple shrouds.......................................................................................43Trying to Read Han Shan................................................................................................44Limbo, Wassergass......................................................................................................46Poison Sumac...........................................................................................................47Lucky..................................................................................................................48Suet...................................................................................................................50Bullfrog, Wassergass...................................................................................................51Sequence...............................................................................................................52Sleep-Eaze.............................................................................................................54IVThe Chasm..............................................................................................................59Four-Way Switch........................................................................................................60The Ninth Circle, Wassergass...........................................................................................61I keep repeating the name of the concerto..............................................................................63Letter #3 to Carruth about the Heron...................................................................................64Hanging Tinsel.........................................................................................................66Snowflakes in Hell.....................................................................................................68Considering Aunt Bea's white Toyota Celica.............................................................................70Right after Mass.......................................................................................................71Inside the dim kitchen the rosary......................................................................................73Window Candle..........................................................................................................74VHeaven's Gate..........................................................................................................77Our Son Leaves His Miniature Japanese Sand Garden Behind Because There Will Be No Room in the Dorm.....................79Compensate.............................................................................................................80The Failed Trick.......................................................................................................81My Father, Setting the Line, Sunny October.............................................................................82Monitoring Impulses....................................................................................................83Sister Aquinas, Questioning............................................................................................85Peaches in Pennsylvania Late August....................................................................................86What does a man who's 55 say...........................................................................................87Window of Our Soul.....................................................................................................88Dinner with My Son, Casey Lynn's Diner, Hellertown.....................................................................90

Chapter One

Washing the Steps I was washing the hallway steps with a sopped blue sponge and a bucket of clouded water and she was coming after, rubbing her thumb hard from side to side, holding the dirt-smudged whirls up with last night's lipstick-stained smile that said Begin again at the top and this time work your way down right- so as I sit on the padded chair, waxy faces floating by, nodding, whispering words I can't quite hear, a woman placing a hankie in my hand almost makes me rise to dust my mother's casket off, where the others left their smudged fingerprints without a second thought, me half-expecting her to open those eyes that saw every grit and mote, for her to lift that thumb again to rub the coffin's solid...