Stephen Dobyns Poems

Because his wife refused to miss a dress fitting,
she missed his death instead. He painted to the last,
a portrait in profile of his gardener sitting
...

How calm is the spring evening, and the water
barely a ripple. My son stands at the edge
tossing in pebbles, then jumping back. He knows
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My stepdaughter is three and we have some games
we play when she gets back from day care and I
have finished my work for the day. In one game,
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'I have begun to think,' he wrote in a late letter,
'that one cannot help others at all.' This
from a man who once called friendship the highest
...

Trying to remember you
is like carrying water
in my hands a long distance
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The girls he followed down the street, the heartbreaks
he pretended to suffer, the giddy letters he wrote
...

The heavy lidded enterprise of the dead
begins with forgetting, ends with forgotten.
Like smoke, so thick at first but higher
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Life begins, you make some friends,
what futures you plan for one another.
No failures here, no one sent to prison.
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Jesus agreed to send out for Chinese.
Styrofoam containers were placed before
the Disciples. All received two egg rolls.
...

Four fellows in orange uniforms
and a fifth in a dismal suit play
pickup soccer in the street. It's their
...