Commonspeaking Collection
Published in Commonspeaking (Swarthmore College), 1999
A Sleeper Car (1999)
You are asleep with your small glasses folded up, grasshopper legs.
I squint out the window to see flat land, shadows of darkness,
am convinced that I have never known anything about this country.
There is the steady chug of the train moving forward in the night,
your steady breathing filling the car, your relaxed knee, bare foot,
moonlight reflected from the ring you never remove.
Another train passes so I could reach out and touch it,
headed someplace faster it seems. Somewhere where
they are not I suppose sleeping time away, meandering down
narrow corridors unsteadily, chewing slowly, digesting well.
I see your shirt hanging on the door
swaying slightly as the car rumbles onward
convincing me that I never knew anyone before you.
I let the curtain fall, smothering the moon,
the wide light that pulled me
from sleeping beside you
Salad Days (1999)
For my parents
We had a strawberry patch in our big
green, brown, and forsythia yard
beneath the pealing blue moon with
white trim and dark eyes
We lived above a tennis court never built,
left an ambiguous pit overtaken by daisies
The pines bowed courteously
beneath their skirts we dined,
silverware, bright pink and green
plastic baskets left over from Easter,
baby dolls with heavy eyes
We had a banging back door,
cracked wooden steps
The ground felt uneven beneath our feet
The grass held hidden treasure
The weather, sometimes grey and sometimes blue
sometimes warm and sometimes cold
We knew no schedule
The woods, soldier friends lined up
A tree house held low in a crook
an arm snapped
Injury never healed
A path meandered downward
dotted by protruding tops,
buried bottles
Memory reflects the shimmer of metal
A colander in the late spring, early morning sun
We picked our berries knowing
the devouring would wait
past pump, past blackeyed susans, a pear tree
a hose wrapped up like a snail
We returned to the moon which awaited us,
disappearing, fading into its cool shadows
