Mark Doty Poems

They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity
barred with black bands,
...

You weren't well or really ill yet either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.
...

Today the Masons are auctioning
their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans,
gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes
labeled inside the collar "Potentate"
...

1. FAITH

“I’ve been having these
awful dreams, each a little different,
...

The intact facade's now almost black
in the rain; all day they've torn at the back
of the building, "the oldest concrete structure
in New England," the newspaper said. By afternoon,
...

Long Pont's apparitional
this warm spring morning,
the strand a blur of sandy light,
...

Because the road to our house
is a back road, meadowlands punctuated
by gravel quarry and lumberyard,
there are unexpected travelers
...

Glassmakers,
at century's end,
compounded metallic lusters
...

This salt-stain spot
marks the place where men
lay down their heads,
back to the bench,
...

Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,
...