Sophie Cabot Black Poems

Beyond is a brightness
I am not equal to

Yet what I see
Turns into what I want,
...

As for her, the circumstances must be ordinary
And so the return. Door unlocked. The path mowed
Right to the oiled gate; the pasture
...

How many times I have provided
For your death; the apple turned one way
Then the other, an arrangement made,
...

Day and night, the lake dreams of sky.
A privacy as old as the mountains
And her up there, stuck among peaks. The whole eye
...

Maybe the light from a small window
Tucked at the utmost eave of the barn
Could be misunderstood; if only I had pulled
...

that you are unloved
but that you love
and must decide which
...

As the leaves turn their backs on us
And the lilac gives over to dusk, nothing
Is ever certain, not even the house, stubborn
...

Which cannot be written tries anyway—
From one room to another, each time startled
And does not want to hear of the already
...

To put one and one together making
Two and so on. A house appears, room
With a bed in it. To configure anyway,
...

Up on the mountain as she rose above
Treeline came the unexpected bodies:
The woman slightly burned, the man curled
...