On line at the supermarket waiting for the tally, the blue numerals tattooed on the white skins

My broom with its tufts of roses beckoning at the black, with its crown of thistles, prickling the sky,

‘Hotel rooms constitute a separate… —Tom Stoppard A bed, a telephone, the cord to the world beyond the womb . . .

The great bed of the world arching over graves over Babi Yar with its multitude of bones, with battalions of screams

I love to go to sleep, When bed takes me like a lover wrapping my limbs in cool linen, soothing the fretfulness

For centuries we have lain like this, our warmths intermingled, our hearts beating the same two-step,

Broken ivories playing the blue piano of the sea. We have come

the sky sinks its blue teeth into the mountains. Rising on pure will (the lurch & lift-off, the sudden swing

Male? Female? God doesn’t care about sex & the long tree-shaded avenue

The decorum of fire... —Pablo Neruda We learned the decorum of fire, the flame’s curious symmetry, the blue heat at the center of the…

Dear Colette, I want to write to you about being a woman for that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face

After the college reading, the eager students gather. They ask me

Knowing our lives a drowse towards death (attended by dogs & children) how can it not matter