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—for J.P.O. I have wished you dead and myself dead, How could it be otherwise. I have broken into you like a burglar And you've set your dogs on me. You have been a hurricane to me And a pile of broken sticks A child could kick. I have climbed you like a monument, gasping, For the exercise and the view, And leaned over the railing at the top– Strong and warm, that summer wind.

Such were they, a dumb stuffed thing to say, if truth is we all grow old un- observed, limbs flail only halfway up a flight, where does dark begin settling my little bones. I dream and do love to have them, blue fish in a lake, my head more tipped up than down under damp earth. Some days others like deer from the shot, peeled back, how I find trees dressed in wild green light. The years come, unstitched a face, saddled as one would a heavy beast for walking. Likely I became then a member of heaven, put up, the years come and reaching their long wet hands.

Nothing required an account of me And still I didn't give one. I might have been a virtual casualty, A late victim of the Millennium Bug. No spontaneity, no insubordination, Not even any spare capacity.

A word you can’t quite say without itching, flinching; it’s not easy to ignore its squirming appetite, stay your primal juddering. And yes, at night, each microbe gurns in the salty sea of gut and gullet, born again, boldly eats as you ate it, brews its own queasy tea of proto-raunch which it will quickly sate, birthing wanderlusting vigors, as yet unknown to microscience. They sashay, set out for the toes or gape through your eyes at your drooping lids, your fat bunch of keys, at this internal motel’s boss, bellhop, lackey, sat in the throne of his slumber, a mercy seat.

They got me into the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall worship at my grave.

If light pours like water into the kitchen where I sway with my tired children, if the rug beneath us is woven with tough flowers, and the yellow bowl on the table rests with the sweet heft of fruit, the sun-warmed plums, if my body curves over the babies, and if I am singing, then loneliness has lost its shape, and this quiet is only quiet.

In a cerulean ruckus Of quilts, we played house Off the big room where They laughed & slowdragged Weekends.The eagle flies On Friday.

Port-au-Prince Girl on a heap of street sweepings high as a pyre, laid on snarled wire & dented rim. Girl set down among the wrung-out hides. A girl who was coming from church. It is late Sunday afternoon.Was it a seizure? Is it destiny or bad luck we should fear? Weak heart or swerving taxi? In Tet Bef by the dirty ocean thousands crush past her without pausing at the shrine of her spayed limbs; brilliance like the flesh of lilies sprouting from the pummeled cane. Is it possible to be lighthearted, hours later? Days? To forget the yellow dress? I am waiting for her mother to find her, still wearing one white spotless glove (where is the other?), my idle taxi level with her unbruised arm, her fingers just curling like petals of a fallen flower and how did it end? Let someone have gathered her up before the stars assembled coldly overhead: her dress brighter than gold, crocus, the yolk of an egg her face covered like the bride of a god; let them have found her & borne her though the traffic's clamor veiled with a stranger's handkerchief.

What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments? I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don’t kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don’t suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don’t lose the yellow gloves. I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream—the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches—I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn’t have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother’s eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills.To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night.If you don’t get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill. The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don’t scream, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fight—you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change—next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he’d only hurry up with the bread, when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag. Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos? Part of the difference between floating and going down.

Yellow goblins and a god I can swallow: Eyes in the evergreens under ice. Interior monologue and some voice. Weary fears, the usual trials and a place to surmise blessedness.