- 1. Poem About People
The jaunty crop-haired graying
Women in grocery stores,
Their clothes boyish and neat,
New mittens or clean sneakers,
...
- 2. Shirt
The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians
...
- 3. Glory
Pindar, poet of the victories, fitted names
And legends into verses for the chorus to sing:
Names recalled now only in the poems of Pindar:
...
- 4. An Explanation Of America: A Love Of Death
Imagine a child from Virginia or New Hampshire
Alone on the prairie eighty years ago
Or more, one afternoonâ??the shaggy pelt
Of grasses, for the first time in that childâ??s life,
...
- 5. Poem With Refrains
The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog
Uncurling over the tainted city river,
A young girl rowing and her anxious father
Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever
...
- 6. Doctor Frolic
Felicity the healer isnâ??t young
And you donâ??t look him up unless you need him.
Clownâ??s eyes, Popeâ??s nose, a mouth for dirty stories,
He made his bundle in the Great Depression
...
- 7. Impossible To Tell
to Robert Hass and in memory of Elliot Gilbert
Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
...
- 8. Essay On Psychiatrists
I. Invocation
Itâ??s crazy to think one could describe themâ??
Calling on reason, fantasy, memory, eves and earsâ??
...
- 9. The Night Game
Some of us believe
We would have conceived romantic
Love out of our own passions
With no precedents,
...
