Lucius Furius Poems

I
I've never hit my children.
My own father spanked me perhaps ten times:
for riding my bike on a busy street,
...

Death!
seems y've won;
body's resistance,
all worn down.
...

'23: July 24'
'24: October 5'
'25: February 19'
'26: December 14'
...

How distant my Swabian* youth seems now.
I made a glider which really flew, you know.*
Not far, but yes, it carried me! I soared!
...

I left my mittens in the Smokies.
It was that night at Maddron Bald on the ridge
after we'd hiked from Davenport Gap -
12 miles,4,000 feet.
...

The golfers leave early -
September or October -
it's just you and the hickories,
the asters, the goldenrod -
...

When the cold seeps through your skin,
thinking how many times you've walked here alone
when you might have been lying in the arms of lovers,
warm and comforting,
...

It was cold.
Night.
January, I think.
I was wearing long underwear.
...

I remember how you used to care for the flowers
and arrange the vegetables at the stand.
How carefully you drove the tractor.
...

I
'She's lovely... so natural.'
A corpse pumped full of formaldehyde.
My grandmother? That prodigious maker of
...