To Myself ( Read more... )

Domestic
Carl Phillips

If, when studying road atlases
while taking, as you call it, your
morning dump, you shout down to
me names like Miami City, Franconia,
Cancún, as places for you to take
me to from here, can I help it if

all I can think is things that are
stupid, like he loves me he loves me
not? I don’t think so. No more
than, some mornings, ( Read more... )

The Map
Larry Levis

Applying to Heavy Equipment School
I marched farther into the Great Plains
And refused to come out.
I threw up a few scaffolds of disinterest.
Around me in the fields, the hogs grunted
And lay on their sides.

You came with a little water and went away.
The glass is still on the table,
And the paper,
And the burned scaffolds.
   * ( Read more... )

Her my body
Bob Hicok

The dog licks my hand as I worry
about the left nipple
of the woman in the bathroom.

She is drying her hair, the woman
whose left nipple is sore.
We looked this evening
for diagonal cuts
or discoloration
or bite marks from small insects
that may be in our bed.

It is a good bed, a faithful bed.
A bed that won’t be hurt
by the ( Read more... )

[As if I craved error, as if love was ahistorical ( Read more... )

Distances
Eavan Boland

The radio is playing downstairs in the kitchen.
The clock says eight and the light says
winter. You are pulling up your hood against a bad morning.

Don't leave, I say. Don't go without telling me
the name of that song. You call it back to me from the stairs-
'I Wish I Was in Carrickfergus'

and the words open out with emigrant ( Read more... )

The Day Flies Off Without Me ( Read more... )