Michael McGriff Poems

I was wrong about oblivion then,
summer mornings we walked the logging roads
north of Laverne, the gypo trucks leaving miles of gravel dust
...

Above my cold house at daybreak, you hang
in a nest of thinning stars, navigate
the pitch of the roof like November rain.
Where's the invisible bridge you're building
...

Let me be the architect
in the glass city of your mouth.
The wild clock of your mouth
...

Another Oregon November and I'm barreling down
Old Wagon Road again, the night waters of Isthmus Slough
winding through the dark. I gear down the three-in-the-tree Chevy
as Tonya's leg pushes against me. She says, Think you'll leave this place
...

The moon is fishing for compliments
along the sand bar, and I'm holding
a banquet for our separateness,
...

This winter's carnival of rain
tears down and moves east
for the hills.
...

The dreams of those buried in winter
push through the ground in summer.
Among the orders, my dead
...

1. The Scar On My Father's Chest
As a child, the surgeons went in
to unkink his heart's twisted chain.
They left a welder's hasty bead,
...

Dust and blackberry carried on the wind,
sand moving hand over hand
in the dunes, memory,
...

I winch-up the sky
between the shed roof and the ridge
and stand dumb as a goat
beneath its arrows and buckets,
...