Larry Kimmel

For a moment, the sun
on a red barn, dying,
on dry fields still as a gold death-mask
warmed yellow only to the eye
...

Her breast
fit
like a fruit
...

holding my eye
she undoes her blouse
my strict attention

...

What they left behind them
are the stone fences.

Each stone,
...

Slats of clear gold sunlight
and snow like fur on every branch
and every branch after branch after branch
as far as thought can reach...
...

Quite suddenly, full blown,
out of the chubby cheeks of an infant wind,
a leaf landed on a mud-puddle,
like a strange, crude vessel launched
...

Snow,
flecked by moon made mica.

Cold, windless air—even
...

The red pulse of three turn signals and the click of my own
—a serial music, more for the eye than the ear.

Images of unseen birds sweep the rear window of the car ahead,
...

Unable to sleep
I stand at the northeast window. A pond
of snow-melt,
back dropped by five spruces
...

A disc the yellow of old ivory, and then,
for the first time in a life oblivious,

it comes into focus, the face of the man
...

We did what we could
read their letters, figured their taxes
good neighbors they—
now just a cellar hole
...

Already accustomed to the procedure,
it isn't long till one
flutters down from the sky to clutch
the edge of my hand;
...

With its miniature rock gardens, grape arbor, and roses (roses everywhere, like a child's experiment with rouge): with its neatly trimmed grass along the flagstone walks; with its birdbath (strategically placed, as was its willow tree) —the backyard had all the aura of a formal garden.

In that lawn (just large enough to frame a family portrait) , hemmed in by a wire fence disguised with honeysuckle vines and marigolds, one somehow achieved a sense of privacy; even a sense of seclusion from the nearby neighbors. While outside, a narrow broken alley ran between two rows of other backyard lawns.
...

I hold in my hand a ring. Moxium High.
Class of '58. The initials my own.
Within weeks, I'd left it by a public sink.
Loss noted and steps retraced—both
...

A thought dwelt on
can only grow—

and a weed is a bad thought
...

You believe
it can be done, yes,

that the water
...