Karen Swenson Poems

We read the same books as children- Kipling,
Haggard, Stevenson- and dreamt adventure,
but they went off, the boys, to munch on sago
...

They've come on board their grocery baskets full
to gossip and shake off the clinging sand
from bare feet and vegetables. They pull
...

The sheets and nightgowns semaphore a breeze,
next door to Kali's multicolored dome,
the sun-bleached, tattered signals from the dying.
...

In a museum of the city
once called Saigon, are snapshots. One's
been blown up so we can all see
it clearly. An American,
...

The point of clothes was line
a shallow fall of cotton over childish hips
or a coat ruled sharply, shoulder to hem
...