Into the gravity of my life, the serious ceremonies of polish and paper and pen, has come this manic animal

When they taught me that what matt… was not the strict iambic line goo… over the page but the variations in that line and the tension produ… on the ear by the surprise of diff…

The gathering family throws shadows around us, it is the late afternoon Of the family. There is still enough light

January Contorted by wind, mere armatures for ice or snow, the trees resolve to endure for now,

After Adam Zagajewski I am child to no one, mother to a… wife for the long haul. On fall days I am happy with my dying brethren, the leaves…

When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away

I married you for all the wrong re… charmed by your dangerous family h… by the innocent muscles, bulging l… weapons under your shirt, by your… the colors of painted scraps of su…

What we want is never simple. We move among the things we thought we wanted: a face, a room, an open book

We invent our gods the way the Greeks did, in our own image’€”but magnified. Athena, the very mother of wisdom, squabbled with Poseidon

It was early May, I think a moment of lilac or dogwood when so many promises are made it hardly matters if a few are bro… My mother and father still hovered

I am only leaving you for a handful of days but it feels as thought i will be gone forever the way the door closes

I remember what my father told me: There is an age when you are most… He was just past fifty then, Was it something about the trees t… There is an age when you are most…

We think of hidden in a white dres… among the folded linens and sachet… of well-kept cupboards, or just ou… sending jellies and notes with no… to all the wondering Amherst neigh…

1. THE SACRIFICE On this tile the knife like a sickle-moon hangs in the painted air