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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.

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.