a blacksnake crossed the gravel in the afternoon, moving from one field to the other, undulant across the road and eventually ending. The earth, when dust under its muscles,…

  June 2014   1   A day they said   my mother just mayfly life   rush fly drive ten years ago through just-   greened trees bleeding hearts by the…

  A sidewalk begins to spot, then the odor of wet canvas comes, and peat. Oils on the surfaces of rocks are released. Papers, piled near window sills or screens,…

          CHAPTER 1: PRELUDE With the dog half dead, winter mice sneak into the house to empty his bowl.           CHAPTER 2: SUMMER NIGHTS They follow…

  In “the excitement of firing” one young soldier on the roof of No. 25 Northumberland Road knocked himself unconscious with the butt of his own rifle, while his comrade,…

  There had been cat-stink out by the bushes, and I was scared for the song-thrush, its nest a chalice of grass and twigs, carpeted   with mud and human…

  A blessing on the endurance of childhood, each moment a lifespan and a whole hour runs over   the horizon. Blessing on the hard rooms of old age, a…

  The god Hephaestus had it, too. A yoke. A plow. A word   for punishment in public: pillory. From Kyphon,   meaning bent or crooked. I greet the diagnosis…

  In evergreens gravid with snow,       the red startles, a sudden flare-- you see      the rounded wind of bird, an exhalation,         …

  At times we believe we have been wronged, so perfectly and bankrupted, that someone must come to redress us   and does so— a stranger appearing who reveals an…

  It’s still there. So are my dead parents in their bathing suits and white terrycloth robes, trundling their beach bags, chairs, and umbrellas. The path connects woods to river,…

  I have been reading your better servant George Herbert again, and I’m trying to turn my day into prayer, praying as the toast rises with the toaster’s tinny bell…