The obvious is difficult To prove. Many prefer The hidden. I did, too. I listened to the trees. They had a secret

You must come to them sideways In rooms webbed in shadow, Sneak a view of their emptiness Without them catching A glimpse of you in return.

Millions were dead; everybody was… I stayed in my room. The Presiden… Spoke of war as of a magic love po… My eyes were opened in astonishmen… In a mirror my face appeared to me

The brightly-painted horse Had a boy’s face, And four small wheels Under his feet, Plus a long string

They arrive inside They object at evening. There’s no one to meet them. The lamps they carry Cast their shadows

Shoes, secret face of my inner lif… Two gaping toothless mouths, Two partly decomposed animal skins Smelling of mice-nests. My brother and sister who died at…

On the road with billowing poplars… In a country flat and desolate To the far-off gray horizon, where… A man and a woman went on foot, Each carrying a small suitcase.

Green Buddhas On the fruit stand. We eat the smile And spit out the teeth.

Your mother carried you Out of the smoking ruins of a buil… And set you down on this sidewalk Like a doll bundled in burnt rags, Where you now stood years later

O crows circling over my head and… I admit to being, at times, Suddenly, and without the slightes… Exceedingly happy. On a morning otherwise sunless,

In my great grandmother’s time, All one needed was a broom To get to see places And give the geese a chase in the… •

As an ant is powerless Against a raised boot, And only has an instant To have a bright idea or two. The black boot so polished,

The mail truck goes down the coast Carrying a single letter. At the end of a long pier The bored seagull lifts a leg now… And forgets to put it down.

for Hayden Carruth If you didn’t see the six-legged d… It doesn’t matter. We did, and he mostly lay in the c… As for the extra legs,