Mother's Day 1939

“Take out the crib and leave the playpen, Doc.

The diapers that I’ve got are wearing thin,

the oldest boy has rickets and the skin

on his little sister’s pale enough to shock

The Rib that Got Away

Yes, Adam was asleep

when God lifted his rib

to make him a helpmate

Well, she helped herself

Fascination

A comb

A spritz

A lipstick

The Guitarist That Night

Just thinking about the guitarist that night,

who can sing of love

in the most contorted fashion

until the word has lost all loveliness,

A Ripple

Much as a still body of water,

when a trifling breeze comes up,

feels a ripple start across the pond

searching for the consummation

Saturn Devouring His Children

In a drawing by Goya never held any horror
for me, devouring as any father,
trying to get the Madonna alone and all
the Madonna ever wanted was the kid

To a spider this morning

You seem sure-footed enough

as long as you stay

in your web, filaments so thin

I can't see the spokes

Union Cemetery

There's frost laying across their beds

this morning, like it did

when we were kids in Vermont
No central heat, they slept us

If I Ever

If I ever
anyway
do
or seem to

In "Michigan" Woods

I’d never trade the roaring brook

that bordered our front yard

for anything.  My brother took

his Blazer up the road.

Angels

Angels appeared in my poems
long before they became
as common as lapel pins.  Once