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Hickory, dickory, dock, The mouse ran up the clock; The clock struck one, And down he run, Hickory, dickory, dock.

I propose turning the key useless to conceal from you that strange things take place it used to ring of its own accord chair by the window and the door closed saw the curtain detach falling when I weary of looking, something is bound to appear walking backwards she is frightened by the sound but cannot describe it the face vanishes, the hands remain white arms beneath fearful drapery looking out, over the hill I burn it, it distills a dark mucus curtain wrenched away a gossamer veil, as it seems resembling, yet most unlike her armless chair, handless cup sloping downwards to the base of the hill momentary grasp around her ankle an old-fashioned house a narrow lane on a declivity

In dogma is the secret that renders God unconditioned, on one condition. “If you are not My people, I am not your God.” As fashioned by His people's witness, a made thing, God, condemns the made things graven images are. Inscribed as born wittingly of Himself, God is (so to speak) that Father abler than the most sovereign earthly father to make all things good. God the Father is conceived as for us. Purposive, stewarding, benign, He covenants our living on. “Written in continuance” in His Book before they took form were the parts of our fitful bodies. As if what's given with the world is life only, life, and not (along with it, in time) at last, life's needful withdrawal, God's said to let the truthful keep their lives forever if they swear God does what He says. These are the portions: either I'll outlast death or it me. Little matter which if it's the avowed God I'm given up to. That I'm settled in the finite is what's true instead. Living is a good I don't want stopped even for the saved. I'm beholden to it all the way that, in its one chance each with me and others, death hasn't used itself up yet. Mine affords me another day hours before it's light. Along with the caused things outside that I can't see, I'm here ahead of myself again toward that coupling with the ground when “I am poured out like water.” Death's still to be heard from at its least reserved. Under its breath it primes me to pay up and look pleasant.

from a distance almost festive rippling in the morning breeze soft conversations great piles of scallions a pungent sun illuminates the faces of young girls she keeps grabbing them, straightening out their roots and tails in a little gesture of self-consciousness, she pulls her sweater away from her face knocks the dirt off, ties a rubber band around them Ejido San Quintin all are packed in ice and shipped to Great Britian __________ from a distance almost restive rising on the 20th floor clipped conversations great piles of papers a humming fax machine illuminates the faces of young girls they keep grabbing at her, straightening out her hands and fingers in a little gesture of self-consciousness, she pulls her sweater away from her face lifts it off the paper tray, sticks a sticky on it Ejido San Quintin all are packed in ice and shipped to Great Britian __________ from a distance almost resistive basking in the building’s fluorescent light algebraic conversations great piles of direct objects a deadened emotion illuminates the faces of young girls he keeps changing them, sorting out the nouns and verbs in a little gesture of trained-consciousness, he quickly minimizes the screen from his face knocks the dirt off, ties a rubber band around them Ejido San Quintin all are packed in ice and shipped to Great Britian __________ from a distance almost imperceptive breezing through the morning frequencies anxious reservations great piles of diners a poetry audience illuminates the faces of young girls she keeps grabbing them, straightening out their roots and social whereabouts in a non-literal gesture of class-consciousness, he pulls her sweater away from her face knocks the dirt off, ties a rubber band around them Ejido San Quintin all are packed in ice and shipped to Great Britian __________ from a distance almost assertive shuffling through the evening news moot conversations great piles of rotting vegetables a pungent spin-off literature illuminates the faces of young girls it keeps grabbing him, chopping up his roots and raison d’êtres in a tactically abstract solidarizing gesture of class-consciousness, she peels his self conscious piece away from her face knocks the dirt off, ties a rubber band around it Ejido San Quintin all are packed in ice and shipped to Great Britian _________ Ejido: A landholding community owned collectively by its members. In 1992, the Mexican congress (largely at the behest of Wall Street) passed legislation aimed at watering-down Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution (guaranteeing the fundamental economic and cultural rights of the ejidos), opening the way for the privatization and commercialization of the lands, thus rendering the peasants’ political gains (stemming from the Mexican Revolution of 1910- 1917) effectively moot.

known for her cooking the consistent perfection of spring rolls evenly fried her secret to brush it with just a hint of apple juice to add some color give some flavor she is the mother of five a wife a widow it is easy to forget her strength in its subtlety she keeps it hidden like the smell of apple juice that reminds me of my family the eighteen days we spent on a tanker the sticky metal floors streaked with the vomit of children crying a pearl a day she removed from a string milky white marbles on an army issued blanket a make-shift playground that kept what was ours i would have to be good no crying no complaining it was mine to keep it was mine to lose being thirsty that i remember drinking juice from a can tomato apple a concoction of both my mother traded her red jade bracelet for a jar of water the kind you drank if you had money to buy if you spoke korean the kind that was plain without the taste of salt she said uống từ từ—drink it slowly i was given a third of this precious water the rest she saved     hid in a suitcase

When the motorboat man asked me to love him I whispered precipice the word for the no-more-boyfriend feeling because precipice contains ice(practically twice) because I wanted teetering— What? he said Yes His ears from the engines—so hard of hearing—his hands always so hot Mid our first winter—I’d clung so long to the dock he had to crowbar my fingers off Each digit cracked so cleanly Would you say they break like icicles? I asked sweetly I knew I was nothing! But if I could sustain one song— I is, I is, I is I is I is I could be:ice Sex on the bathroom’s cold marble counter was best I whispered statuette,monument What? he, sculpting my legs, said Yes The child? I named her Cecily It sounded like iced lily For pure, I said pristine At the ocean, I said brine Isle for vacation; for flowers,edelweiss But when I said (only of late, late!)I choose ice Brittle pearls broke behind my syllables Did he hear me? Again, twice, thrice: For my love we would need to live in a great pyramid We would need to sleep beneath the continental shelf with Antarctic crust blanketing us The only driveway to any kind of house is an iceberg-ridden Northwest Passage When I whispered universe you were to translate it as one bright line one bright rime

There are diagrams on stilts all wired together Over the hill and the wind and out of sight. There is a scar in the trees where they walk away Beyond me. There are signs of something Nearly God (or at least most curious) About them. I think those diagrams are not At rest. I think they are a way of ciphering God: He is the hugest socket and all his miracles Are wired behind him scarring the hill and the wind As the waterfall flies roaring to his city On the open palms of the diagram. There is Shining, I suppose, in that city at night And measure for miracles, and wheels whirling So quick-silver they seem to be going backwards. And there’s a miracle already. But I Went naked through his wood of diagrams On a day of the rain beside me to his city. When I kissed that socket with my wet lip My teeth fell out, my fingers sprouted chives, And what a bald head chewed on my sick heart!

When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives— Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if Anyone looked at me, forty years back, And thought,That’ll be the life; No God any more, or sweating in the dark

Errol drives me to Treasure Beach It’s an old story, the terrible storm swerving the dark country roads the ship going down, half the sailors I think about what you will be, your mix drowned, half swimming the white, black, Chinese, and your father’s slate waves, spat hard onto shore Scottish-Englishness. We cross the Black River Smashed crates, bodies where they shipped cane sugar and molasses choking on the black sand upstream past a sign One man stands —What is this place? A woman for Lover’s Leap. The air stinks of sulphur in the trees, one hand raised Errol drops me at a blue gate.Be safe This is how the Scotsmen came behind the house, the thin beach why the black people here have red hair of black sand, the water warm and gray Or the other story, no storm I am deep before I know it, groundless no wrecked ship. Just the miles the swell stops the sickness of cane fields and mulatto children named under a crooked tree, perched on sea rocks McDonald or McArthur for two fishermen in torn denims, smoking their fathers, who owned them I dry in the sun. They pass, turn, come close Nothing grows at Lover’s Leap they have rust afros, gold faces splashed with freckles where two runaways one ripped with muscle, one with eyes cornered by their master, held hands like razors.What you want here they say and jumped down into the clouds

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is: Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this. What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under: If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder. Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt: We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without? Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover: Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over. Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight: Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate. Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels: God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels. Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which: The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch. More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole: Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul? One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two: Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true. Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks: Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox. Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew: You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you. Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock: Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock. God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see: Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.