Poetry

When lightning dropped its whip onto
the Squirrel Hill, the explosion
broke the air all up and down
the rainy valley.

This morning
   two deer
      in the pinewoods,
         in the five a.m. mist,

in a silky agitation,
   went leaping
      down into the shadows

When the heart valve buckles
or the brain vessel ruptures and I,
at last accomplished, stumble sloshed
in blood over the edge of the earth
into the faulty recall of a few people,
don’t weep for me.

I can’t remember how old I was,
but I used to stand in front
of the bathroom mirror, trying to imagine
what it would be like to be dead.

On a wall by his bed hangs a picture
Of a curious boathouse
On stilts in back water.

Driving to the airport, we pass the equestrian
statue in the park: the plumed general
on his narrow plinth. It’s not easy