He always coughed before he ran.
She often thought of the sound a car makes
just before ignition, which also
coughs before it runs.
...
No tree bears all varieties of fruits:
not apple trees or peaches,
and not the tree of knowledge,
and all the things it teaches.
...
Cassandras multiply in winter.
“You just wait. This year’ll be
the coldest,
...
Violetta, accompanied by her vintage viola,
and with vocal vivacity, sang of violets and violent vendettas,
victorious viceroys and virtuous virgins.
...
I’m told that wolf packs
are rigidly hierarchical.
Each member
knows its station
...
A sinuous black worm,
the funeral procession
of black limousines crawls
toward the cemetary.
...
The black of the panther
is so intensely black
that in openings in the jungle
their forms stand out, instead of blending
...
No need for you clanking old sycamores
to shake your death rattle at me,
Wild goose from Manitoba,
precise in your perfect V:
...
He dreamt that night
that without warning
the earth’s magnetic pull
let go, as a boy
...
Because he was broken
she spoke to him in broken English,
in spoken anguish, in sighs.
...