COLLECTED POEMS

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Contents

LIES [1969]
A Day for Anne Frank.............................................................3
Even If I Could..................................................................9
Saint Sex........................................................................10
The Long Naked Walk of the Dead..................................................11
In There.........................................................................12
Loss.............................................................................13
The Hard Part....................................................................14
The World's Greatest Tricycle-Rider..............................................15
The Sorrow.......................................................................16
The Man Who Owns Sleep...........................................................17
Before This......................................................................18
Dimensions.......................................................................19
To Market........................................................................20
What Is and Is Not...............................................................22
Hood.............................................................................23
On the Roof......................................................................24
It Is This Way with Men..........................................................25
Sleeping Over....................................................................26
The Other Side...................................................................29
Of What Is Past..................................................................30
Ashes Ashes We All Fail Down.....................................................31
Trappers.........................................................................32
Being Alone......................................................................33
Trash............................................................................34
Giving It Up.....................................................................35
For Gail, When I Was Five........................................................36
Don't............................................................................37
Just Right.......................................................................40
After That.......................................................................41
Ten Below........................................................................42
Tails............................................................................44
Sky, Water.......................................................................45
Downwards........................................................................46
Shells...........................................................................47
Beyond...........................................................................48
Patience Is When You Stop Waiting................................................49
Faint Praise.....................................................................50
Halves...........................................................................51
Penance..........................................................................52
It Is Teeming....................................................................53
From Now On......................................................................54
I AM THE BITTER NAME [1972]
I Am the Bitter Name.............................................................57
Keep It..........................................................................58
The Spirit the Triumph...........................................................59
Madder...........................................................................60
Poor Hope........................................................................62
Bringing It Home.................................................................63
The Little Shirt.................................................................64
Clay out of Silence..............................................................65
Innings..........................................................................66
Becoming Somebody Else...........................................................67
Hounding Mercy...................................................................68
What Did the Man Do with the Clouds?.............................................69
The Matter.......................................................................70
Refuge, Serpent-Riders...........................................................71
Flat.............................................................................72
A Poem for the Governments.......................................................73
Another Dollar...................................................................74
The Beginning of April...........................................................75
This Is a Sin....................................................................76
The Undead.......................................................................77
Then the Brother of the Wind.....................................................78
The Next to the Last Poem about God..............................................79
Acids............................................................................81
They Warned Him Then They Threw Him Away.........................................83
Ribbons..........................................................................84
The Rampage......................................................................85
The Nut..........................................................................86
Yours............................................................................87
The Nickname of Hell.............................................................88
Bad Mouth........................................................................89
This Day.........................................................................90
The Rabbit Fights for His Life The Leopard Eats Lunch............................91
Cellophane.......................................................................92
Inches...........................................................................93
The Sting........................................................................94
The Last.........................................................................96
In the Heart of the Beast........................................................97
THE LARK. THE THRUSH. THE STARLING. (POEMS FROM ISSA) [1983]
WITH IGNORANCE [1977]
The Sanctity.....................................................................117
Spit.............................................................................120
Toil.............................................................................122
The Last Deaths..................................................................124
The Race of the Flood............................................................127
Bob..............................................................................129
Bread............................................................................132
Near the Haunted Castle..........................................................134
The Cave.........................................................................136
Hog Heaven.......................................................................138
Blades...........................................................................140
Friends..........................................................................142
The Shade........................................................................144
With Ignorance...................................................................146
TAR [1983]
From My Window...................................................................157
My Mother's Lips.................................................................160
The Dog..........................................................................162
The Color of Time................................................................164
Flight...........................................................................166
The Gift.........................................................................169
On Learning of a Friend's Illness................................................171
Combat...........................................................................173
Floor............................................................................180
Waking led.......................................................................183
Neglect..........................................................................185
Still Life.......................................................................187
The Regulars.....................................................................189
Soon.............................................................................192
The Gas Station..................................................................195
Tar..............................................................................197
One of the Muses.................................................................199
FLESH AND BLOOD [1987]
I
Elms.............................................................................221
Hooks............................................................................221
Nostalgia........................................................................222
Artemis..........................................................................222
Guatemala: 1964..................................................................223
Herakles.........................................................................223
First Desires....................................................................224
The Dirty Talker: D Line, Boston.................................................224
Repression.......................................................................225
Como.............................................................................225
One Morning in Brooklyn..........................................................226
Self-Knowledge...................................................................226
Alzheimer's: The Wife............................................................227
Alzheimer's: The Husband.........................................................227
The Critic.......................................................................228
New Car..........................................................................228
Conscience.......................................................................229
Noise: Sinalunga.................................................................229
Anger............................................................................230
Even So..........................................................................230
Drought..........................................................................231
End of Drought...................................................................231
Easter...........................................................................232
Girl Meets Boy...................................................................232
Bishop Tutu's Visit to the White House: 1984.....................................233
Experience.......................................................................233
Resentment.......................................................................234
Mornings: Catherine..............................................................234
The Ladder.......................................................................235
War..............................................................................235
Greed............................................................................236
The Past.........................................................................236
Ice..............................................................................237
The Modern.......................................................................237
The Mistress.....................................................................238
The Lover........................................................................238
Religious Thought................................................................239
Carpe Diem.......................................................................239
Twins............................................................................240
The Telephone....................................................................240
Failure..........................................................................241
Crime............................................................................241
Fat..............................................................................242
Fame.............................................................................242
USOCA............................................................................243
Eight Months.....................................................................243
Junior High School Concert: Salle Rossini........................................244
The Prodigy......................................................................244
Souls............................................................................245
Regret...........................................................................245
Cowboys..........................................................................246
The Marriage.....................................................................246
Fifteen..........................................................................247
Sixteen: Tuscany.................................................................247
Thinking Thought.................................................................248
Jews.............................................................................248
Snow: I..........................................................................249
Snow: II.........................................................................249
Gardens..........................................................................250
The Star.........................................................................250
Kin..............................................................................251
Fire.............................................................................251
Dignity..........................................................................252
Fast Food........................................................................252
The Orchid.......................................................................253
The City in the Hills............................................................253
From the Next Book by (...)......................................................254
Native Americans.................................................................254
Work.............................................................................255
Gratitude........................................................................255
Will.............................................................................256
Pregnant.........................................................................256
Peace............................................................................257
Some of Us.......................................................................257
Two: Resurrections...............................................................258
Men..............................................................................258
Shame............................................................................259
On the Other Hand................................................................259
The Fountain.....................................................................260
The Latin Quarter................................................................260
Rungs............................................................................261
Normality........................................................................261
The Storm........................................................................262
Blame............................................................................262
Medusa...........................................................................263
Rush Hour........................................................................263
Philadelphia: 1978...............................................................264
Midas............................................................................264
The Park.........................................................................265
Travelers........................................................................265
Second Persons: Café de L'Abbaye.................................................266
The Lens.........................................................................266
The Body.........................................................................267
Racists..........................................................................267
The Dream........................................................................268
Dawn.............................................................................268
II
Reading: Winter..................................................................271
Reading: The Subway..............................................................271
Reading: The Bus.................................................................272
Reading: The Gym.................................................................272
Reading: The Cop.................................................................273
Reading: Early Sorrow............................................................273
Suicide: Elena...................................................................274
Suicide: Ludie...................................................................274
Suicide: Anne....................................................................275
Love: Youth......................................................................275
Love: Beginnings.................................................................276
Love: Habit......................................................................276
Love: Loss.......................................................................277
Love: Sight......................................................................277
Love: Petulance..................................................................278
Love: Intimacy...................................................................278
Love: Shyness....................................................................279
Love: Wrath......................................................................279
Love: The Dance..................................................................280
Good Mother: The Métro...........................................................280
Good Mother: The Plane...........................................................281
Good Mother: The Car.............................................................281
Good Mother: Out.................................................................282
Good Mother: The Street..........................................................282
Good Mother: The Bus.............................................................283
Good Mother: Home................................................................283
Vehicle: Conscience..............................................................284
Vehicle: Forgetting..............................................................284
Vehicle: Insecurity..............................................................285
Vehicle: Indolence...............................................................285
Vehicle: Circles.................................................................286
Vehicle: Absence.................................................................286
Vehicle: Violence................................................................287
III
Le Petit Salvié..................................................................291
A DREAM OF MIND [1992]
I
When.............................................................................305
The Vessel.......................................................................307
Allies: According to Herodotus...................................................309
Harm.............................................................................311
The Insult.......................................................................312
Child Psychology.................................................................313
Chapter Eleven...................................................................315
The Loneliness...................................................................317
Scar.............................................................................319
II SOME OF THE FORMS OF JEALOUSY
Signs............................................................................323
The Cautionary...................................................................325
Baby Talk........................................................................328
The Question.....................................................................330
Meditation.......................................................................332
Politics.........................................................................333
Pillow Talk......................................................................335
Ethics...........................................................................336
The Mirror.......................................................................337
The Call.........................................................................338
The Image........................................................................340
The Idyll........................................................................342
The Silence......................................................................343
Soliloquies......................................................................345
III
She, Though......................................................................351
IV A DREAM OF MIND
The Method.......................................................................365
Shadows..........................................................................367
Vocations........................................................................369
The Solid........................................................................371
The Charge.......................................................................373
The Crime........................................................................375
Shells...........................................................................376
Room.............................................................................377
History..........................................................................379
The Gap..........................................................................381
The Knot.........................................................................383
The Fear.........................................................................385
You..............................................................................386
To Listen........................................................................387
The Covenant.....................................................................389
Light............................................................................391
V
Helen............................................................................395
THE VIGIL [1997]
I
The Neighbor.....................................................................407
Dominion: Depression.............................................................409
Fragment.........................................................................411
The Hovel........................................................................412
My Fly...........................................................................413
Hercules, Deianira, Nessus.......................................................415
Instinct.........................................................................418
Time: 1976.......................................................................419
The Coma.........................................................................421
Proof............................................................................422
Secrets..........................................................................423
The Widower......................................................................426
Money............................................................................427
My Book, My Book.................................................................428
Time: 1975.......................................................................429
Cave.............................................................................430
Grief............................................................................431
II
Symbols..........................................................................437
1 / Wind.........................................................................437
2 / Guitar.......................................................................438
3 / Owl..........................................................................439
4 / Dog..........................................................................440
5 / Fire.........................................................................441
6 / Dawn.........................................................................442
7 / Wig..........................................................................443
8 / Garden.......................................................................444
III
Realms...........................................................................447
Storm............................................................................448
Interrogation II.................................................................450
Song.............................................................................456
Insight..........................................................................457
In Darkness......................................................................462
The Demagogue....................................................................464
The Bed..........................................................................465
The Heart........................................................................467
Exterior: Day....................................................................468
Time: 1978.......................................................................469
Hawk.............................................................................471
The Lover........................................................................473
The Game.........................................................................474
Spider Psyche....................................................................475
Grace............................................................................476
Time: 1972.......................................................................478
Villanelle of the Suicide's Mother...............................................479
Thirst...........................................................................480
Old Man..........................................................................482
REPAIR [1999]
Ice..............................................................................487
The Train........................................................................489
Archetypes.......................................................................490
After Auschwitz..................................................................491
The Dress........................................................................494
The Blow.........................................................................497
Bone.............................................................................499
Shock............................................................................500
The Poet.........................................................................502
Stone............................................................................507
Droplets.........................................................................508
Tender...........................................................................509
Risk.............................................................................510
House............................................................................511
Naked............................................................................512
Glass............................................................................513
Shoe.............................................................................514
Dream............................................................................515
The Cup..........................................................................516
Lost Wax.........................................................................518
Space............................................................................519
Tantrum..........................................................................520
Not Soul.........................................................................521
Depths...........................................................................523
Tree.............................................................................525
King.............................................................................526
Owen: Seven Days.................................................................531
Gas..............................................................................534
Last Things......................................................................535
The Lie..........................................................................536
The Nail.........................................................................537
Canal............................................................................538
The Dance........................................................................539
Biopsy...........................................................................540
The Island.......................................................................541
Dirt.............................................................................543
Swifts...........................................................................544
Invisible Mending................................................................545
THE SINGING [2003]
I
The Doe..........................................................................551
The Singing......................................................................552
Bialystok, or Lvov...............................................................554
This Happened....................................................................555
Self-Portrait with Rembrandt Self-Portrait.......................................557
Gravel...........................................................................558
Lessons..........................................................................559
Oh...............................................................................561
Narcissism.......................................................................563
Dissections......................................................................564
Scale: I.........................................................................565
Scale: II........................................................................567
Doves............................................................................568
Flamenco.........................................................................570
Inculcations.....................................................................571
Sully: Sixteen Months............................................................572
The World........................................................................573
II
Of Childhood the Dark............................................................577
III
Elegy for an Artist..............................................................587
IV
War..............................................................................599
Fear.............................................................................601
Chaos............................................................................603
The Future.......................................................................605
The Clause.......................................................................606
Leaves...........................................................................607
Night............................................................................608
In the Forest....................................................................611
The Hearth.......................................................................613
Low Relief.......................................................................616
The Tract........................................................................618
NEW POEMS
The Gaffe........................................................................625
Thrush...........................................................................627
Cows.............................................................................628
Marina...........................................................................630
Blackbird........................................................................632
Wasp.............................................................................634
On the Métro.....................................................................635
Peggy............................................................................637
Fish.............................................................................638
The Blade........................................................................639
Miniature Poodle.................................................................641
Plums............................................................................642
Rats.............................................................................644
Again............................................................................647
Frog.............................................................................649
Prisoners........................................................................651
Wood.............................................................................653
Fire.............................................................................654
We...............................................................................655
Saddening........................................................................657
Shrapnel.........................................................................659
Cassandra, Iraq..................................................................662
Ponies...........................................................................664
Index of Titles..................................................................667
Index of First Lines.............................................................673

Chapter One

LIES

[1969]

   A Day for Anne Frank
   
   God hates you!
             -St. John Chrysostom
   
   1.
   
   I look onto air alley here
   where, though tough weeds and flowers thrust up
   through cracks and strain
   toward the dulled sunlight,
   there is the usual filth spilling from cans,
   the heavy soot shifting in the gutters.
   People come by mostly
   to walk their dogs or take the shortcut
   between the roaring main streets,
   or just to walk
   and stare up at the smoky windows,
   but this morning when I looked out
   children were there running back and forth
   between the houses toward me.
   They were playing with turtles-
   skimming them down the street
   like pennies or flat stones,
   and bolting, shouting, after the broken corpses.
   One had a harmonica, and as he ran,
   his cheeks bloating and collapsing like a heart,
   I could hear its bleat, and then the girls' screams
   suspended behind them with their hair,
   and all of them: their hard, young breath,
   their feet pounding wildly on the pavement to the corner.
   

   2.
   
   I thought of you at that age.
   Little Sister, I thought of you,
   thin as a door,
   and of how your thighs would have swelled
   and softened like cake,
   your breasts have bleached
   and the new hair growing on you like song
   would have stiffened and gone dark.
   There was rain for a while, and then not.
   Because no one came, I slept again,
   and dreamed that you were here with me,
   snarled on me like wire,
   tangled so closely to me that we were vines
   or underbrush together,
   or hands clenched.

   
   3.
   
   They are cutting babies in half on bets.
   The beautiful sergeant has enough money to drink
   for a week.
   The beautiful lieutenant can't stop betting.
   The little boy whimpers
   he'll be good.
   The beautiful cook is gathering up meat
   for the dogs.
   The beautiful dogs
   love it all.
   Their flanks glisten.
   They curl up in their warm kennels
   and breathe.
   They breathe.
   

   4.
   
   Little Sister,
   you are a clot
   in the snow,
   blackened,
   a chunk of phlegm
   or puke
   and there are men with faces
   leaning over you with watercans
   
   watering you!
   in the snow, as though flowers would sprout
   from your armpits
   and genitals.
   
   Little Sister,
   I am afraid of the flowers sprouting from you
   
   I am afraid of the silver petals
   that crackle
   of the stems darting
   in the wind
   of the roots

   
   5.
   
   The twilight rots.
   Over the greasy bridges and factories,
   it dissolves
   and the clouds swamp in its rose
   to nothing.
   I think sometimes the slag heaps by the river
   should be bodies
   and that the pods of moral terror
   men make of their flesh should split
   and foam their cold, sterile seeds into the tides
   like snow
   or ash.


   6.
   
   Stacks of hair were there
   little mountains
   the gestapo children must have played in
   and made love in and loved
   the way children love haystacks or mountains
   
   O God the stink
   of hair oil and dandruff
   
   their mothers must have thrown them into their tubs
   like puppies and sent them to bed
   
   coming home so filthy stinking
   of jew's hair
   of gold fillings, of eyelids

   
   7.
   
   Under me on a roof
   a sparrow little by little
   is being blown away.
   A cage of bone is left,
   part of its wings,
   a stain.

   
   8.
   
   And in Germany the streetcar conductors go to work
   in their stiff hats,
   depositing workers and housewives
   where they belong,
   pulling the bell chains,
   moving drive levers forward or back.

  
   9.

   I am saying goodbye to you before our death. Dear Father:
   I am saying goodbye to you before my death. We are so
   anxious to live, but all is lost-we are not allowed! I am
   so afraid of this death, because little children are thrown
   into graves alive. Goodbye forever.
                                   I kiss you.

   
   10.
   
   Come with me, Anne.
   Come,
   it is awful not to be anywhere at all,
   to have no one
   like an old whore,
   a general.
   
   Come sit with me here
   kiss me; my heart too is wounded
   with forgiveness.
   
   There is an end now.
   Stay.
   Your foot hooked through mine
   your hand against my hand
   your hip touching me lightly
   
   it will end now
   it will not begin again
   
   Stay
   they will pass
   and not know us
   
   the cold brute earth
   is asleep
   
   there is no danger

   there is nothing

   Anne

   there is nothing
   

   Even If I Could
   
   Except for the little girl
   making faces behind me, and the rainbow
   behind her, and the school and the truck,
   the only thing between you
   and infinity
   is me. Which is why you cover your ears
   when I speak and why
   you're always oozing around the edges,
   clinging, trying
   to go by me.
   
   And except for my eyes and the back
   of my skull, and then my hair,
   the wall, the concrete
   and the fire-cloud, except for them
   you would see
   God. And that's why rage howls in your arms
   like a baby and why I can't move-
   because of the thunder and the shadows
   merging like oil and the smile gleaming
   through the petals.
   
   Let me tell you how sick with loneliness
   I am. What can I do while the distance
   throbs on my back like a hump,
   or say, with stars stinging me
   through the wheel? You are before me,
   behind me things rattle their deaths out
   like paper. The angels ride
   in their soft saddles:
   except for them, I would come closer
   and go.
   

   Saint Sex

   there are people whose sex
   keeps growing even when they're old whose
   genitals swell like tumors endlessly
   until they are all sex and nothing else nothing
   that moves or thinks nothing
   but great inward and outward handfuls of gristle
   
   think of them men
   who ooze their penises out like snail
   feet whose testicles clang in their scrotums women
   are like anvils to them the world an
   anvil they want to take whole buildings
   in their arms they want
   to come in the windows to run antennas
   through their ducts like ramrods and women
   these poor women who dream and dream of
   the flower they can't sniff it sends buds
   into their brain they feel their neural
   river clot with moist fingers the ganglia
   hardening like ant eggs the ends
   burning off
   
   pity them these people there are no wars
   for them there is no news no
   summer no reason they are so humble they want
   nothing they have no hands or faces
   pity them at night whispering I love
   you to themselves and during the day how they
   walk along smiling and suffering pity;
   them love them they are
   angels

   
   The Long Naked Walk of the Dead
   
   for Arthur Atkins
   
   As long as they trample the sad smiles of guitars
   the world won't burn. The mother speaks to her daughter
   and explains: it is the breath of money in the trees
   that drives angels; it is the stillness from morning
   to morning when the horses of life have fallen
   under their traces in the street and shudder and vanish.

   It is the man who meets no one who will touch us
   with sharp hands that shake over the concrete
   like branches. Or the songs muttering on the paths
   crisscrossing the grasses. A bench leaning back.
   The sweet arms of gardeners. An enemy passing
   with sons and grandsons, all just soldiers.
   
   In flesh that only moves and speaks, the players
   slide out like empty trailers to the temple country.
   Six hundred thousand on the mountain when it opened.
   Every word of the scream, six hundred thousand faces.
   The dark metal man gleaming in the talons of silence.
   Halfway down in the house of suffering, it is starting.
   

   In There
   
   Here I am, walking along your eyelid again
   toward your tear duct. Here are your eyelashes
   like elephant grass and one tear
   blocking the way like a boulder.
   
   It probably takes me a long time
   to figure it out, chatting with neighbors,
   trying penicillin, steam baths, meditation
   on the Shekinah and sonnet cycles
   
   and then six more months blasting
   with my jackhammer before I get in there
   and can wander through your face, meeting you
   on the sly, kissing you from this side.
   
   I am your own personal verb now. Here I come,
   "dancing," "loving," "making poems."
   I find a telescope
   and an old astronomer
   
   to study my own face with,
   and then, well, I am dreaming behind your cheekbone
   about Bolivia and tangerines and the country
   and here I come again, along your eyelid, walking.
   

   Loss
   
   In this day and age Lord
   you are like one of those poor farmers
   who burns the forests off
   and murders his land and then
   can't leave and goes sullen and lean
   among the rusting yard junk, the scrub
   and the famished stock.
   
   Lord I have felt myself raked
   into the earth like manure,
   harrowed and plowed under,
   but I am still enough like you
   to stand on the porch
   chewing a stalk or drinking
   while tall weeds come up dead
   and the house dogs, snapping
   their chains like moths, howl
   and point towards the withering
   meadows at nothing.
   
   
   The Hard Part
   
   Do you remember when we dreamed about the owl
   and the skeleton, and the shoe
   opened and there was the angel
   with his finger in the book, his smile like chocolate?
   
   And remember? Everything that had been crushed
   or burned, we changed back.
   We turned the heart around
   in the beginning, we closed the blossom, we let the drum go.
   
   But you're missing now. Every night I feel us crying
   together, but it's late-
   the white bear and the lawyer
   are locking the house up and where are you?
   
   The wind walking, the rock turning over with worms
   stuck to its haunches-
   how will I know what loves me now
   and what doesn't? How will I forgive you?
   

   The World's Greatest Tricycle-Rider
   
   The world's greatest tricycle-rider
   is in my heart, riding like a wildman,
   no hands, almost upside down along
   the walls and over the high curbs
   and stoops, his bell rapid firing,
   the sun spinning in his spokes like a flame.

   But he is growing older. His feet
   overshoot the pedals. His teeth set
   too hard against the jolts, and I am afraid
   that what I've kept from him is what
   tightens his fingers on the rubber grips
   and drives him again and again on the same block.
   

   The Sorrow   

   with huge jowls that wobble with sad o
   horribly sad eyes with bristles with
   clothes torn tie a rag hands trembling this
   burnt man in my arms won't listen he
   struggles pulls loose and is going
   and I am crying again Poppa Poppa it's me Poppa
   but it's not it's not me I am not
   someone who with these long years will
   so easily retreat I am not someone after
   these torments who simply cries so
   I am not so unquestionably a son or
   even daughter or have I face or voice
   bear with me perhaps it was me who
   went away perhaps I did dream it and give
   birth again it doesn't matter now I stay
   in my truck now I am loaded with
   fruit with cold bottles with documents
   of arrest and execution Father do you
   remember me? how I hid and cried to you?
   how my lovely genitals were bound up?
   I am too small again my voice thins my
   small wrists won't hold the weight again
   what is forgiven? am I forgiven again?
   

   The Man Who Owns Sleep

   The man who owns sleep
   is watching the prisoners being beaten
   behind the fence.
   His eye pressed to the knothole,
   he sees the leather curling into smiles
   and snapping, he sees the intricate geography
   of ruined backs,
   the faces propped
   open like suitcases
   in the sunlight.
   
   Who is this man
   who's cornered the market
   on sleeping?
   He's not quite finished.
   He bends over with a hand on his knee
   to balance him
   and from the other side they see
   that clear eye in the wall
   watching unblinking.
   They see it has slept,
   
   prisoners and guards: it drives them
   to frenzies. The whips hiccup
   and shriek. Those dead already roll over
   and rub their retinas into the pebbles.
   The man who owns sleep has had it.
   He's tired.
   Taking an ice-cream cone
   from the little wagon
   he yawns and licks it.
   Walking away, he yawns, licking it.
   
   
   Before This
   
   we got rid of the big people
   finally we took grandpa and put half
   on the mack truck and half on
   the bottom grandma
   we locked in with her watches
   mommy and daddy had to be cut apart but they
   are in separate icebergs you can't
   see them under
   the red lid
   
   one place or another they are all gone
   and it's hard to remember
   cars? furcoats? the office?
   now all there are
   are roomfuls of children sleeping as far
   as you can see little mattresses and
   between them socks balled up and
   underwear and scuffed shoes
   with their months open.
   
   but how am I here? I feel
   my lips move I count breaths I hear somebody
   cry out MOTHER HELP ME somebody's hand
   touches me peacefully across boundaries
   kiss? hit? die? the blankets
   harden with urine the fuzz
   thins holes come
   HOW AM I HERE? MOTHER
   HOW AM I HERE?
   

   Dimensions
   
   There is a world somewhere else that is unendurable.
   Those who live in it are helpless in the hands of elements,
   they are like branches in the deep woods in wind
   that whip their leaves off and slice the heart of the night
   and sob. They are like boats bleating wearily in fog.

   But here, no matter what, we know where we stand.
   We know more or less what comes next. We hold out.
   Sometimes a dream will shake us like little dogs, a fever
   hang on so we're not ourselves or love wring us out,
   but we prevail, we certify and make sure, we go on.

   There is a world that uses its soldiers and widows
   for flour, its orphans for building stone, its legs for pens.
   In that place, eves are softened and harmless like God's
   and all blend in the traffic of their tragedy and pass by
   like people. And sometimes one of us, losing the way,
   will drift over the border and see them there, dying,
   laughing, being revived. When we come home, we are half way.
   Our screams heal the torn silence. We are the scars.

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Excerpted from COLLECTED POEMS by C. K. Williams Copyright © 2006 by C. K. Williams. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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