After stepping into the world again,
there is that question of how to love,
how to bundle yourself against the frosted morning-
the crunch of icy grass underfoot, the scrape
of cold wipers along the windshield-
and convert time into distance.

What song to sing down an empty road
as you begin your morning ...Read more

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Years later I'm standing before a roomful of young writers in a high school in Texas. I've asked them to locate an image in a poem we'd just read-their heads at this moment are bowed to the page. After some back & forth about the grass & a Styrofoam cup, a girl raises her hand & asks, Does it matter? I smile-it is as if the universe balanced on ...Read more

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I spend a long time considering pillowcases.
Which pillowcase does my head want for rest?
A lace edge so that the cheek does not grow bored?

All night the face turns on its pillow,
bridging the day gone with its divination of tomorrow.
The brain sleeps but the body twitches and kicks,

lashes out, steals the sheets, ...Read more

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"she's kicking"
nalani says

holds my
hands against

her belly
so warm!

chicken broth
boils in

the crockpot
bones turn

in briny
liquid-baby

kicks again
can she

feel my
body heat?

magma rises
water into

steam-Kilauea
drill, turbine

Mauna Loa
grid, undersea

cables-is
...Read more

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May I master love, undo its luster
do in the thing that makes us lust?

May I speed through the body's sinew
to marrow? Or is toiling a part of

the gaining of trust? May I pare and narrow
your body down, and open it to my

cupidity's arrow? May I find my
response to body's unanswered call,

(if the want leaves you ...Read more

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When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,

If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:
"Be still, I am content,

Take back your poor compassion,
Joy was a flame in me
Too ...Read more

Not Found

Fragments of sin are a part of me.
New brooms shall sweep clean the heart of me.
Shall they? Shall they?

When this light life shall have passed away,
God shall redeem me, a castaway.
Shall He? Shall He?

About This Poem
"Appellate Jurisdiction" by Marianne Moore was published in the May 1915 issue of Poetry along ...Read more

The sun isn't even a pearl today-
its light diffused, strained gray
by winter haze-this the grayest
day so far, so when I enter the Wells
Fargo parking lot the last thing I expect
is to see the sun in the car next to mine.
I watch a woman make out with the sun,
and I'm jealous of the sun. Beautiful
...Read more

Lo, even as I passed beside the booth
Of roses, and beheld them brightly twine
To damask heights, taking them as a sign
Of my own self still unconcerned with truth;
Even as I held up in hands uncouth
And drained with joy the golden-bodied wine,
Deeming it half-unworthy, half divine,
From out the sweet-...Read more

You said:
What you wrote (at this moment-here)
was being written by someone somewhere else
at the same time (this is the question) some
country some town on stilts-in a broken
concentration bus or a polished make-believe desk
a cheap jungled-up clinic an empty one no supplies
for the sickly aged children...Read more

At the time the time felt well spent but now
I see it was wasted. Not a waste-it just had
no point-no shape-no hourglass' tapering
waist. At a certain point, bliss gets replaced
by disinterest. If you will allow me for once
to be honest. I left the sea's lacy wake, waking
each day well-rested, untested, unmet....Read more

It's late and your heart skips watching
that young man fight. The Garden, the left
jab lashes like a frog's tongue catching
a fly. There you go again with an undeft

image to his arthropod conceit. You know he'll win,
an old victory. They hate him there, sore
that he joined your faith, a strapping boy, ...Read more

for Chris Martin
To you
through whom

these sudden days
blowse & hum

thirst & quench
a tide of tensing trees

days tick by
beats in a song

my body grows
fuller each day

I think my life
has always been

for this quiet
...Read more

As no assistance could be expected
of the ocean, I turned to the trumpeting
tunnel of sky and rummaged
the tops of plum birch turning
their leaves like coins, then
to the tumbler sweating
on the porch rail. The sky,
the color of whale oil. The wind,
a box of uncolored letters. And so
I was ...Read more