Some days, I sail on an empty boat to a country I don’t know. / With my navy-blue passport, I can go anywhere.
Spring turns to summer, hopes fly high. A golden romance—in my bloody fists I smell osmanthus flowers. Under the pulped sun, lovers grow young and younger.
After the death of the dictator, his son wanted him embalmed. His son wanted him on perpetual display in a glass box.
What damage do I do? / The night avoids my eyes, so does the road. / I am never wholly myself, unto myself.
I’m writing a play about a Kommandant at Auschwitz / who recognizes one of the Jewish prisoners/ as a famous poet
Before North took a seasonal job / fishing for kings in Alaska / I’d never admitted to myself / that he was my only friend.
Inasmuch as our faces / bear resemblance, / now, to what // I imagine of them
Able only to recall / his parting footsteps—the chipping away at / a tree one fells at last
Through the window, what light gives / new meaning in the day.
The wings deceive. They do not spreadand thinly slice the air. They rest limp,almost useless. Dragonfly shape without its dignity.
