Someone put an accordion in the crook
of a tree where it plays itself
on windy days—where I miraculously walk through impassable
...
I've studied it,
Looked inside its vowels,
Examined consonants as if they were pyramids,
Like they held a secret
...
He stops at restaurant chalkboards
on busy sidewalks—to jot down
a few formulae,
as people move past scratching
...
Theseus the King looked out his little window.
His ankle was hurting again
and that picture of his wife kept falling
out of his trousers.
...
In my other life, when I was a Polar explorer,
the cold was penetrating—like the way air enters
an accordion. Being raised by bears
...
Behold! A snowball in hell
Next to a burning lake.
—Charles Simic
...
Herodotus the Greek historian
born in Halicarnassus of the Persian Empire
is waving from the elementary school window,
his beard flowing from a rubber-band over his ears,
...
Because no one would take me,
I went to my grandmother's headstone by myself.
...
"People in Hell want ice water too, "
My father used to say.
A few of us down here
Standing around asking about it.
...