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The kitchen in the house had a nook for eating, a groove for the broom behind the door and the woman moved through it like bathing, reaching ladles from drawers, turning to lift the milk from the refrigerator while still stirring the pudding, as if the room and everything in it were as intimate to her as her body, as beautiful and worthy of her attention as the elbows which each day she soothed with rose lotion or the white legs she lifted, again and again, in turn, while watching television. To be in that room must be what it was like to be the man next to her at night, or the child who, at six o’clock had stood close enough to smell the wool of her sweater through the steam, and later, at the goodnight kiss, could breathe the flavor of her hair— codfish and broccoli—and taste the coffee, which was darkness on her lips, and listen then from upstairs to the water running down, the mattress drifting down the river, a pale moonmark on the floor, and hear the clink of silverware—the stars, their distant speaking—and picture the ceiling—the back of a woman kneeling, covering the heart and holding up the bed and roof and cooling sky.

A yellow leaf in the branches Of a shamel ash In the front yard; I see it, a yellow leaf Among so many. Nothing distinguishes it, Nothing striking, striped, stripped, Strident, nothing More than its yellow On this day, Which is enough, which makes me Think of it later in the day, Remember it in conversation With a friend, Though I do not mention it— A yellow leaf on a shamel ash On a clear day In an Arizona winter, A January like so many.

Daffodils shimmy in the dilated onion grass their hearts out Shelovesme Shelovesmenot Smeared against the sidewalk Urine left in the toilet all day simmers under halogens Listening to someone else breathe listening to static cling Time to wipe down the refrigerator with a handful of ibuprofen and a bandanna soaked in tonic water Butter-butter Black lemons Pine-Sol • Daffodils shimmy in the dilated onion grass their asses off Other yellow flowers I don’t see you yet Noon tears down the street a terrible kid on a brand-new Now I remember the faces of tulips Speechless Yellow peaches sweat inside brown paper bags Press your forehead against the pit in the perfect peach and everything will stop moving how about that? • Daffodils shimmy in the dilated onion grass their eyes closed Close your eyes I close my eyes Families of worms work their yellow way up through clouds in the mustard air Slams into the yard Pollen lies down on everything it just lies down sun the color of photosynthesis and that’s fine Birds bark inside houses Yellow fingers work the yellow spine

When beechen buds begin to swell, And woods the blue-bird’s warble know, The yellow violet’s modest bell Peeps from the last year’s leaves below. Ere russet fields their green resume, Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare, To meet thee, when thy faint perfume Alone is in the virgin air. Of all her train, the hands of Spring First plant thee in the watery mould, And I have seen thee blossoming Beside the snow-bank’s edges cold. Thy parent sun, who bade thee view Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip, Has bathed thee in his own bright hue, And streaked with jet thy glowing lip. Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat, And earthward bent thy gentle eye, Unapt the passing view to meet When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh. Oft, in the sunless April day, Thy early smile has stayed my walk; But midst the gorgeous blooms of May, I passed thee on thy humble stalk. So they, who climb to wealth, forget The friends in darker fortunes tried. I copied them—but I regret That I should ape the ways of pride. And when again the genial hour Awakes the painted tribes of light, I’ll not o’erlook the modest flower That made the woods of April bright.

Just by the wooden brig a bird flew up, Frit by the cowboy as he scrambled down To reach the misty dewberry—let us stoop And seek its nest—the brook we need not dread, 'Tis scarcely deep enough a bee to drown, So it sings harmless o'er its pebbly bed —Ay here it is, stuck close beside the bank Beneath the bunch of grass that spindles rank Its husk seeds tall and high—'tis rudely planned Of bleachèd stubbles and the withered fare That last year's harvest left upon the land, Lined thinly with the horse's sable hair. Five eggs, pen-scribbled o'er with ink their shells Resembling writing scrawls which fancy reads As nature's poesy and pastoral spells— They are the yellowhammer's and she dwells Most poet-like where brooks and flowery weeds As sweet as Castaly to fancy seems And that old molehill like as Parnass' hill On which her partner haply sits and dreams O'er all her joys of song—so leave it still A happy home of sunshine, flowers and streams. Yet in the sweetest places cometh ill, A noisome weed that burthens every soil; For snakes are known with chill and deadly coil To watch such nests and seize the helpless young, And like as though the plague became a guest, Leaving a houseless home, a ruined nest— And mournful hath the little warblers sung When such like woes hath rent its little breast.

When my father held his Bic lighter to the nests in back of the garage, the gray paper pulp sparked then blackened. Ashes fell, coating crawling ivy and clover. A few yellowjackets fled, one or two swirled, flying into the sweaty face of my father, but most too stunned, their usual side-to-side swag of a dance, flailing in the smoke. When one landed on my arm, I stiffened. His wings settled into a still gauze, body coiled in yellow bands, the same shade as buttercups we held to our skin, cupping sunlight near our chins. Every step, careful, quivering, as if neither of us knew who was supposed to sting.

The war was over. We sutured the wounded, buried the dead, sat at the bar with the enemy, near the blue throat of the sea. A sushi chef slivered salmon into orchids, etched clouds from oysters, as they rose snowing pearls. From shrimp and seaweed he shaped hummingbirds, which hovered above our heads. With the world’s smallest blade he carved from yellowfin, miniature flanks of horses. They cantered around our hands.

I am done smoking cigarettes, done waiting tables, done counting tips at two a.m. in the neon-dark dance hall, done sleeping with young men in my apartment, done facing them or not, thinking of oblivion, which is better than nothing. I am done not wearing underwear because it’s so Victorian. I am done telling men I don’t wear underwear because it’s so Victorian. I am done with the night a guy spread my legs on a pool table, all those balls piled up in the pockets. I am done. I am never going back. When I see that night on the street I will drive past and never even glance over. I am done going to grad school, nodding in your workshop. I am done teaching English as a second language, saying I pointing to my chest, saying you pointing to them. I am done teaching the poetry class where no one talked and no one listened to me and outside the window the cottonwood wagged its sun-white leaves in the breeze as if to say,I give up, I give up. I am done being a childless woman, a childless wife, a woman with no scars on her body. I am done with the wide afternoons of before, the long stare, the tightly closed door. And I am done, too, for the most part, with the daydream of after. I am after for now. I am turning up the heater to see if that will make the baby sleep another fifteen minutes so I can finish this poem. I am done thinking of the past as if it had survived, though sometimes I think of the past and sometimes I see it coming, catching up, hands caked with dried mud, head shaved clean.

Yes, your childhood now a legend of fountains — jorge gullén Yes, your childhood, now a legend gone to weeds, still remembers the gray road that set out to cross the desert of the future. And how, always just ahead, gray water glittered, happy to be just a mirage. Who steps off the gray bus at the depot? Sidewalks shudder all the way home. Blinds close their scratchy eyes. Who settles in your old room? Sniffy air sprawls as if it owns the place, and now your teenage secrets have no one to tell. For the spider laying claim to the corner, there is a stickiness to spin, that the living may beg to be wrapped in silk and devoured, leaving not even the flinch from memory.

Yes, I live inside the piano, but there is no need for you to come and visit me.