Max Reif Poems

These pages are a river
down which a young girl watches
her lover disappear,
...

1.
How is it that a day
begins long and slow,
a world just born
...

While waiting
for our bag at the airport,
I vaguely notice a man
wearing a tight, shell necklace,
...

The days leapfrog
over one another
to get to the end of the week.
...

I frequent a well-lighted cafe'.
Outside, wraiths wander in the darkness,
a realm of hungry ghosts.
This morning even Death was there,
...

The rain's gone on two days,
I hope it goes on longer,
this welcome break from time.
...

The problem is pike:
someone dropped
a pair in the lake,
and these savage predators
...

He did not so much abandon me, as himself.
His rage blew out of places that had never known life.

So quickly he turned from 'Daddy' into Father,
...

Up the dusty path,
up the steep grade,
up and up,
turning around every so often
...

In the glass case, a Gutenberg bible—
only three like it left in the world.
Surprising myself, I started to cry,
there in the Library of Congress,
...