Tracy K. Smith Poems

When some people talk about money
They speak as if it were a mysterious lover
Who went out to buy milk and never
...

5pm on the nose. They open their mouths
And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.
First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,
...

The first track still almost swings. High hat and snare, even
A few bars of sax the stratosphere will singe-out soon enough.
...

There will be no edges, but curves.
Clean lines pointing only forward.

History, with its hard spine & dog-eared
...

1.

The earth is dry and they live wanting.
Each with a small reservoir
Of furious music heavy in the throat.
...

After dark, stars glisten like ice, and the distance they span
Hides something elemental. Not God, exactly. More like
Some thin-hipped glittering Bowie-being—a Starman
...

But sometimes I forget where I am,
Imagine myself inside that life again.
...

Oak table, knotted legs, the chirp
And scrape of tines to mouth.
Four children, four engines
...

We like to think of it as parallel to what we know,
Only bigger. One man against the authorities.
Or one man against a city of zombies. One man
...