Thomas Lux Poems

gnawing through a shinbone, a high howl
inside of which a bloody, slashed-by-growls note
is heard, unlike that
sound, and instead, its opposite: a barely sounded
...

follows the river as it bends
along the valley floor,
going the way it must.
Where water goes, so goes the road,
...

One sweet pound of filet mignon
sizzles on the roadside. Let's say a hundred yards below
the buzzard. The buzzard
sees no cars or other buzzards
...

How, in the first place, did
they get torn-pulled down hard
too many times: to hide a blow,
or sex, or a man
...

furnished rooms, flats, a hayloft,
a tent, motels, under a table,
under an overturned rowboat, in a villa (briefly) but not,
as yet, a yurt. In these places
...

What I love about this little leaning mark
is how it divides
without divisiveness. The left
or bottom side prying that choice up or out,
...

is not silent, it is a speaking-
out-loud voice in your head; it is *spoken*,
a voice is *saying* it
...

At the fence line, I was about to call him in when,
at two-thirds profile, head down
and away from me, he fell first
to his left front knee
...

(dirt stolen from an infant's grave around midnight)
Do not try to take it from my child's grave, nor
from the grave
of my childhood,
...

Early germ
warfare. The dead
hurled this way look like wheels
in the sky. Look: there goes
...