David Keplinger Poems

Along the fringe of two known worlds
That make the field, the prison yard,
Behind the house my mother and her sisters
...

Above the cellars
Lined with preserves,
In a foreign year,
Its calendar girls
...

He didn't want the EKG. He didn't want
To know. But the nurse attached
Its greasy patches to his chest to read.
...

Like an enormous leech the pancreas lies
with its head tucked into the duodenum,
upside down, the tail outstretched over it,
...

When the time comes I will lie
to you‚ pajamaed family‚
about the waitress who has scrubbed
...

Take Messina: you'd be impressed and even sad
that I remember. The crag of mottled faces
the rocks made like old pensioners in back pages
...

In Florence‚ Colorado‚ the prisoners
sit glum‚ like superheroes stripped
of their utility belts: no pens permitted
in one's cell. Night‚ the gates soar open;
...

Lincoln, leaving Springfield, 1861,
boards a train with a salute: but it is weak.
To correct it, he slides his hand away
...

They're not in my way. They let me be.
They say that nothing can happen to me.
How good.
...