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
The Something
Here come my night thoughts On crutches, Returning from studying the heavens. What they thought about Stayed the same, Stayed immense and incomprehensible. My mother and father smile at each other Knowingly above the mantel. The cat sleeps on, the dog Growls in his sleep. The stove is cold and so is the bed. Now there are only these crutches To contend with. Go ahead and laugh, while I raise one With difficulty, Swaying on the front porch, While pointing at something In the gray distance. You see nothing, eh? Neither do I, Mr.
1996
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