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Along Ancona’s hills the shimmering heat, A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro To mark the shore. The farmer does not know That they are there. He walks with heavy feet, Counting the bread and wine by autumn’s gain, But I,—I smile to think that days remain Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain, I shall be glad remembering how the fleet, Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.

High on a bright and sunny bed A scarlet poppy grew And up it held its staring head, And thrust it full in view. Yet no attention did it win, By all these efforts made, And less unwelcome had it been In some retired shade. Although within its scarlet breast No sweet perfume was found, It seemed to think itself the best Of all the flowers round, From this I may a hint obtain And take great care indeed, Lest I appear as pert and vain As does this gaudy weed.

I dreamed myself of their people, I am of their people, I thought they watched me that I watched them that they watched the sun and the clouds for the cities are no longer mine    image    images of existence    (or song of myself?)    and the roads for the light in the rear-view mirror is not death but the light of other lives tho if I stumble on a rock I speak of rock if I am to say    anything      anything if I am to tell of myself    splendor of the roads    secrecy of paths for a word like a glass sphere encloses the word opening and opening myself and I am sick for a moment with fear let the magic infants speak we who have brought steel and stone again and again into the cities in that word blind word must speak and speak the magic infants’ speech driving northward the populist north slowly in the sunrise the lapping of shallow waters tongues of the inlets glisten like fur in the low tides all that childhood envied the sounds of the ocean over the flatlands poems piers foolhardy structures and the lives the ingenious lives the winds squall from the grazing ranches’ wandering fences young workmen’s loneliness on the structures has touched and touched the heavy tools    tools in our hands in the clamorous country birth- light savage light of the landscape magic page the magic infants speak

You think we are the pointed argument, the man drunk at the party showing off his gun collection, the bed of nettles. What we really are is hidden from you: girl weeping in the closet among her stepfather's boots; tuft of rabbit fur caught in barbed wire; body of the baby in the landfill; boy with the shy mouth playing his guitar at the picnic table, out in the dirt yard. We slide into this world benign and pliable, quills pressed down smooth over back and tail. Only one hour here stiffens the barbs into thousands of quick retorts. Everything this well-guarded remembers being soft once.

Hugging you takes some practice. So I'll start out with a cactus.

There was a time when I watched it happen. Strangers pressed to other strangers in one bed, clothes on, air humid with the cloying scent of fruit juice and vodka; none of us giving into another and yet unwilling to leave the scene of that possibility, pretending to sleep, actually sleeping. Then waking again to slip a hand over a shoulder, slide a finger inside the waistband of a skirt; so young (we are even now still so young) in that hotel room turning blue then lighter blue. We wouldn’t have tried for more: the kiss, the button; firm, white shape of an image slipped wholly into the mind, acted upon, dreamed upon, filling the thin vessels of the lungs. Earlier, a film, its forced sounds of lovemaking. The tension I felt winding into the muscles of some of the others in the room. I remember I left for awhile. We all left for awhile; even the music was frightening. How to strip ourselves like that, point at the places that were wanted, plucked and peeled; speaking the words, hearing them form us, the nature of what we were and could do to each other? The music, the rocking, the sobbing. The man called the woman by parts of herself. Some laughed at this. I remember I must have been one of them. In the morning, the hotel room was turning white. After the long night, hands were slipping and unslipping, moving over the flattened pillows as if in hopes something small could still satisfy us. Someone turned and looked at someone else; we all heard it. Legs shifted, sheets slid themselves down waists or shoulders, tightened again at the necks of those pretending to sleep as the unblinking sun crawled in our window. From another room, coughing, We all heard it. Someone looked at someone else. The room turned white. The air began clearing.

The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; Which done, she rose, and from her form Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, And laid her soiled gloves by, untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall, And, last, she sat down by my side And called me. When no voice replied, She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced, And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, Murmuring how she loved me — she Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, To set its struggling passion free From pride, and vainer ties dissever, And give herself to me for ever. But passion sometimes would prevail, Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain A sudden thought of one so pale For love of her, and all in vain: So, she was come through wind and rain. Be sure I looked up at her eyes Happy and proud; at last I knew Porphyria worshipped me; surprise Made my heart swell, and still it grew While I debated what to do. That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string I wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And I untightened next the tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: I propped her head up as before, Only, this time my shoulder bore Her head, which droops upon it still: The smiling rosy little head, So glad it has its utmost will, That all it scorned at once is fled, And I, its love, am gained instead! Porphyria's love: she guessed not how Her darling one wish would be heard. And thus we sit together now, And all night long we have not stirred, And yet God has not said a word!

inside the car françois and i could see the light coming from the cigarette michele duvalier was smoking her husband declared president for life looked like a fat chauffeur sitting beind the wheel françois and i smiled the small procession of cars slipping past us in the dark we did not know that a few miles away people were already celebrating nor could we see joy on the faces of the men who ran holding knives and sticks to the place where papa doc was buried tonight even ghosts will die as françois and i walk barefoot at the center of port-au-prince

Jamaica, 1960 Ignoring the local reliquiae— neoclassical arches in ruin, courtyards, their fountains toppled, prados flourishing in prickle-weed, esplanades no longer level enough to collect rainwater, much less respect for the Imperio de España tarnished by an islander’s mock-British accent— two fisherman returned at sundown. Antiquaries themselves, these fishermen schooled in the currents, the tide, the tunneled limestone of the coral reefs, preferred the graceful curves of the £. At the landing, five children, single file, marched away the birds like soldiers, the learned lyrics escaping their lips: Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.

Hanging from the beam, Slowly swaying (such the law), Gaunt the shadow on your green, Shenandoah! The cut is on the crown (Lo, John Brown), And the stabs shall heal no more. Hidden in the cap Is the anguish none can draw; So your future veils its face, Shenandoah! But the streaming beard is shown (Weird John Brown), The meteor of the war.