Find and share the perfect poems.
The river its balm.
I spend a lot of time
waiting in the car,
nail file dust sifting
onto the gearshift.
Two corner stores gone
and a handle of gin
under the Walk sign.
The gin drinker is
uncertain he’s here.
He’s in the war.
Wind blows a hat
past the court’s lawn,
a balloon
from its gravesite tie.
The graveyard is
the town’s high hill.
Salty, sure, and a thrill,
at home in the hot sun
with not much on.
Reaching for eggs
in the dry house
of hens, or reaching
into a slaughtered hen,
plucking her clean—
close-mouthed,
I wouldn’t say
anything bad
about anybody.
Then I grew
into my ugly,
said plenty,
dropping quarters
at the coin laundry.
The sound of water
turning over water
was a comfort,
the sound of someone
else’s things.
There’s only one
wing in our hospital.
It’s sufficient.
So is the one road
out of the county.
You can drive
your whole life
into its macadam,
no matter. June
crosses crosswalks
in the noon air,
greasing gears
so gently
I can feel it
in my ears, unrelenting,
busy as an army
in its foxholes.
The hillside was blocked with pens, horses of other colors five or six to a pen, and one long fenced strip from the base of the hill up, with dark brown horses flank to flank not moving, but their necks craning over each other's backs. They were looking towards the dip at the top of the hill, and the stream running through it. They were looking at what was on the other side, which was my mother, whom I had just walked over the bridge.