Morgan Michaels Poems

Years've passed. Hate and distrust expired.
Your synapses turn to something akin to wood.
You motor's slowing nicely, as it should-
Frankly, you're more or less healthy, love, but tired
...

Two thousand years of delusion
engrafted on five-
my, how they scrap and contradict;
my, how when not scrapping,
...

What if the notions of leisure
and entertainment were defunct?
Celibacy, vegetarianism, tee-totality-
the Shavian trilogy, our game:
...

Outside, the lake
laughed a depthy green
behind nine square panes;
scored by a pier
...

There was a hawk on the porch rail this morning
the span of your arm.
suddenly, out of nowhere it was there:
not unknown in Central Park, maybe,
...

I could see it turn, slightly-the sickle-like beak
over which it watched a handful of wrens
chatter mockingly in a leafless, nearby tree;
the umber thumbprints of its breast coverts
...

Gradually, though, I relaxed,
realizing the creature's downy back was toward me:
that it couldn't see into the room, anyway,
...

Kerkera, I'm leaving you, my love.
You know the reasons:
I can't fish, I can't farm
and I'm allergic to all tourists.
...

John Steinbeck (one answer only, please)

a) lived in Rheinbeck
...