R. T. Smith

Out for a deadbolt, light bulbs
and two-by-fours, I find a flock
of sparrows safe from hawks
...

In Stetson and calico vest, spandex
and Calvin jeans, she was the best
at the bar. Does Gucci make range boots?
Hers were snakeskin with heels
...

If it's true that Johnny Weismuller stole his Tarzan yell
from the Alpine yodel, did Hank Williams in the back seat
of his Cadillac dream the ululation of Bedouin women
...

Is the scent of apple boughs smoking
in the woodstove what I will remember
of the Red Delicious I brought down, ashamed
...

When I am the lone listener to the antiphony of crickets
and the two wild tribes of cicadas and let my mind
wander to its bogs, its sloughs where no endorphins fire,
...

southern viburnum amid the laurel
among the spruce and hemlock
on ridges stalked by the Cherokee
...

When the Empress Hsi Ling-Shi,
veiled in imperial ennui,
lifted the floss floating in her glazed bowl
...

Haze in the orchard
white as a harp's voice.
Each word has fluent
roots, and we love
...

In the sewing room
the mail-order Singer
with its chrome-rimmed
wheel and gleaming needle
...

We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed.
Two nights he came to me, mute,
on fire, no dream. I woke to find
...

Surprised by a frill of white flower
where I'd never planted an eye,
I decided to fence it with sticks
...

When fall brought the graders to Atlas Road,
I drove through gray dust thick as a battle
and saw the ditch freshly scattered with gravel.
...

I like it quiet like this, Alton. I like
to think. I love the way spring light falls
easy, soft. This morning I was driving
the cruiser, savoring gold pollen everywhere
...

Nostrums? Lordy, I have seen them all.
Alcohol's the favorite. Many a quack's
panacea bottled in a cellar and hawked
from door to door is thriving still.
...

I seam towels for Dundee over in Georgia,
a non-union sweatshop with a dozen
rows of them blue glass windows all around.
Some of 'em says it's like a church.
...