Jeanne Murray Walker Poems

Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts
outside to the yard and question the sky,
longing to have the fight settled, thinking
...

She's on life support. Racing to get there,
his Jaguar fishtails on the frozen highway.
She was a beauty and elusive as the future,
...

The bag I drag is solid as earth, clods
I couldn't shake off roots
reeking of rocks and blackness,
...

Speaking of Houdini and escape,
of Spring, this Spring, there being
no General or Eternal Spring,
...

Wasn't it Augustine who said, evil is matter
out of place? He kisses his love
as he pivots from the brothel gate,
...

Suppose I scooped the whole sky in my hand,
I couldn't hold it. Yet hearing a goldfinch,
I feel, well, yes, that tiny song might clench
...

This is the last outrage, what women do
in secret, slipping their fingers under bras or nightgowns
...

I felt it, riding through the afternoon—
the nights are getting shorter and it's cold
and then the baby shifted in my womb
...

You can feel his heartbeat slow
as he loiters just off the Expressway,
by the Okoboji Swamp
...

The scarlet petals were floppy as old hats
by March, and falling into piles on the rug,
so I cut its plastic pot to free its roots
...