Watermelons
Green Buddhas On the fruit stand. We eat the smile And spit out the teeth.
From Return to a Place Lit By a Glass of Milk, by Charles Simic. Published by George Braziller. Copyright © 1974. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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In the Library
for Octavio There’s a book called “A Dictionary of Angels.” No one has opened it in fifty years, I know, because when I did, The covers creaked, the pages Crumbled.
2008
Late September
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 then And forgets to put it down. There is a menace in the air Of tragedies in the making. Last night you thought you heard television In the house next door. You were sure it was some new Horror they were reporting, So you went out to find out. Barefoot, wearing just shorts. It was only the sea sounding weary After so many lifetimes Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere And never getting anywhere. This morning, it felt like Sunday. The heavens did their part
2002
My Shoes
Shoes, secret face of my inner life: Two gaping toothless mouths, Two partly decomposed animal skins Smelling of mice-nests. My brother and sister who died at birth Continuing their existence in you, Guiding my life Toward their incomprehensible innocence. What use are books to me When in you it is possible to read The Gospel of my life on earth And still beyond, of things to come? I want to proclaim the religion I have devised for your perfect humility And the strange church I am building With you as the altar. Ascetic and maternal, you endure: Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned
1971