To write a small note
each day of his first-born's life
...
From the window we watched the skunk mother
Waddle legless through our lawn.
...
Today the water is still.This is what they call mirror-water, glass-water, quiet-face-of-the-sky-water.If you could have waited ten years my son, my daring boy, the water off the break wall would have been this water:calm, cradle-safe for even a baby, my baby, you, my rumble tumble boy.
But no, today you would have been twenty-eight, too old, too safe, too cautious to be my boy, my lost youth boy, my just man, just barely grown boy, my climbing see me jump Ma! see how high I am boy.
...
- for Jason
How does a mother get ready for bed
the night her son hangs himself?
...
Driving over a hill
we saw a blackbird
circling wildly
panicking
...
Tonight
in the high-rise windows
Christmas lights
flicker
...
We are deep mystery.
We are known to no one.
We contain a multitude
...
Once a year, for seven years, I watched
terrified by the tornado and snatching trees,
baffled by Dorothy walking all that way
without eating, and not once needing
...