After Adam Zagajewski I am child to no one, mother to a… wife for the long haul. On fall days I am happy with my dying brethren, the leaves…

I married you for all the wrong re… charmed by your dangerous family h… by the innocent muscles, bulging l… weapons under your shirt, by your… the colors of painted scraps of su…

We think of hidden in a white dres… among the folded linens and sachet… of well-kept cupboards, or just ou… sending jellies and notes with no… to all the wondering Amherst neigh…

It was early May, I think a moment of lilac or dogwood when so many promises are made it hardly matters if a few are bro… My mother and father still hovered

1. THE SACRIFICE On this tile the knife like a sickle-moon hangs in the painted air

When they taught me that what matt… was not the strict iambic line goo… over the page but the variations in that line and the tension produ… on the ear by the surprise of diff…

Finding a new poet is like finding a new wildflower out in the woods. You don’t see its name in the flower books, and nobody you tell believes

I want to write you a love poem as headlong as our creek after thaw when we stand

When our cars touched When you lifted the hood of mine To see the intimate workings under… When we were bound together By a pulse of pure energy,

Perhaps the purpose of leaves is t… the verticality of trees which we… as if for the first time: row afte… yearning upwards. And since we wil… ourselves for so long, let us now…

I have banked the fires of my body into a small but steady blaze here in the kitchen where the dough has a life of its…

What we want is never simple. We move among the things we thought we wanted: a face, a room, an open book

The gathering family throws shadows around us, it is the late afternoon Of the family. There is still enough light

Because the shad are swimming in our waters now, breaching the skin of the river with their