Louise Gluck Poems

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
...

I'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. And that's just the beginning.
Every day, in funeral homes, new widows are born,
new orphans. They sit with their hands folded,
...

Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was--
...

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
...

I never turned anyone into a pig.
Some people are pigs; I make them
Look like pigs.
...

A man and a woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
...

Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
Sleep in their blue yoke,
The fields having been
...

My mother's an expert in one thing:
sending people she loves into the other world.
The little ones, the babies--these
she rocks, whispering or singing quietly. I can't say
...

How can you say
earth should give me joy? Each thing
born is my burden; I cannot succeed
with all of you.
...

What does the horse give you
That I cannot give you?

I watch you when you are alone,
...