Alicia Suskin Ostriker

I am not lyric any more
I will not play the harp
for your pleasure
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Going to be an old wrinkly lady
Going to be one of those frail rag people
Going to have withered hands and be
Puzzled to tears crossing the street
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Now here is a typical children's story
that happens in gorgeous October
when the mothers are coming
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The downward turning touch
the cry of time
fire falling without sound
plunge my hand in the wound
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—for Elizabeth Bishop

Tuwee, calls a bird near the house,
Tuwee, cries another, downhill in the woods.
No wind, early September, beeches and pines,
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As if there could be a world
Of absolute innocence
In which we forget ourselves
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—for Paul Metcalf
A linear projection: a route. It crosses
The ocean in many ships. Arriving in the new
Land, it cuts through and down forests and it
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In every life there's a moment or two
when the self disappears, the cruel wound
takes over, and then again
at times we are filled with sky
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—for David Lehman

Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
—William Wordsworth
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To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
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Boil over—it's what the nerves do,
Watch them seethe when stimulated,

Murmurs the man at the stove
To the one at the fridge—
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Some claim the origin of song
was a war cry
some say it was a rhyme
telling the farmers when to plant and reap
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To tell the truth, those brick Housing Authority buildings
For whose loveliness no soul had planned,
Like random dominoes stood, worn out and facing each other,
Creating the enclosure that was our home.
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They remember the dead who died in the resistance.
It is in sweet tones that they speak of them.
They shake their heads, still, after the dinner
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Matisse, too, when the fingers ceased to work,
Worked larger and bolder, his primary colors celebrating
The weddings of innocence and glory, innocence and glory
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Like a bowerbird trailing a beakful of weeds
Like prize ribbons for the very best

The lover, producer
Of another's pleasure
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And all this while I have been playing with toys
A toy power station a toy automobile a house of blocks

And all this while far off in other lands
Thousands and thousands, millions and millions—
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—for J.P.O.
I have wished you dead and myself dead,
How could it be otherwise.
I have broken into you like a burglar
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I feel the hand of God inside my hand
when I write said the old woman
I am blown away like a hat
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Just finished folding laundry. There's the news. A slender prisoner, ankles shackled, nude back and legs striped by a brown substance you might take for blood but which probably is feces, hair long, arms extended at shoulder level like a dancer or like Jesus,
...